Convert UTC to "local" time in Go

Question

How can I convert UTC time to local time?

I've created a map with the UTC difference for all the countries I need the local time. Then I add that difference as duration to the current time (UTC) and print the result hoping that's the local time of that specific country.

For some reasons the result is wrong. For example with Hungary there is one hour difference. Any idea why I'm getting incorrect results?

package main

import "fmt"
import "time"

func main() {

    m := make(map[string]string)
    m["Hungary"] = "+01.00h"

    offSet, err := time.ParseDuration(m["Hungary"])
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    t := time.Now().UTC().Add(offSet)
    nice := t.Format("15:04")

    fmt.Println(nice)
}

Solution 1

Keep in mind that the playground has the time set to 2009-11-10 23:00:00 +0000 UTC, so it is working.

The proper way is to use time.LoadLocation though, here's an example:

var countryTz = map[string]string{
    "Hungary": "Europe/Budapest",
    "Egypt":   "Africa/Cairo",
}

func timeIn(name string) time.Time {
    loc, err := time.LoadLocation(countryTz[name])
    if err != nil {
        panic(err)
    }
    return time.Now().In(loc)
}

func main() {
    utc := time.Now().UTC().Format("15:04")
    hun := timeIn("Hungary").Format("15:04")
    eg := timeIn("Egypt").Format("15:04")
    fmt.Println(utc, hun, eg)
}

Solution 2

Your approach is flawed. A country can have several time zones, for example, US and Russia. Because of daylight saving time (DST), a time zone can have more than one time, for example, Hungary. Hungary is UTC +1:00 and is also UTC+2:00 for DST.

For each location that you want the local time for a given UTC time, use the IANA (tzdata) time zone location. For example,

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "time"
)

func main() {
    utc := time.Now().UTC()
    fmt.Println(utc)
    local := utc
    location, err := time.LoadLocation("Europe/Budapest")
    if err == nil {
        local = local.In(location)
    }
    fmt.Println("UTC", utc.Format("15:04"), local.Location(), local.Format("15:04"))
    local = utc
    location, err = time.LoadLocation("America/Los_Angeles")
    if err == nil {
        local = local.In(location)
    }
    fmt.Println("UTC", utc.Format("15:04"), local.Location(), local.Format("15:04"))
}

Output:

2014-08-14 23:57:09.151377514 +0000 UTC
UTC 23:57 Europe/Budapest 01:57
UTC 23:57 America/Los_Angeles 16:57

References:

IANA Time Zone Database

tz database

tz database time zones

Time zone

Time in Hungary

Solution 3

Save yourself the hassle of messing with specific zones, use location "Local". Here's a full and practical example of local and UTC conversion:

package main

import (
    "fmt"
    "log"
    "time"
)

const (
    dateTimeFormat = "2006-01-02 15:04 MST"
    dateFormat    = "2006-01-02"
    timeFormat    = "15:04"
)

// A full cycle example of receiving local date and time,
// handing off to a database, retrieving as UTC, and formatting as local datetime
// This should be good in *any* timezone
func main() {
    // If using a form for entry, I strongly suggest a controlled format input like
    // <input type="date" ... > and <input type="time" ... >
    locallyEnteredDate := "2017-07-16"
    locallyEnteredTime := "14:00"

    // Build a time object from received fields (time objects include zone info)
    // We are assuming the code is running on a server that is in the same zone as the current user
    zone, _ := time.Now().Zone() // get the local zone
    dateTimeZ := locallyEnteredDate + " " + locallyEnteredTime + " " + zone
    dte, err := time.Parse(dateTimeFormat, dateTimeZ)
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal("Error parsing entered datetime", err)
    }
    fmt.Println("dte:", dte) // dte is a legit time object
    // Perhaps we are saving this in a database.
    // A good database driver should save the time object as UTC in a time with zone field,
    // and return a time object with UTC as zone.

    // For the sake of this example, let's assume an object identical to `dte` is returned
    // dte := ReceiveFromDatabase()

    // Convert received date to local.
    // Note the use of the convenient "Local" location https://golang.org/pkg/time/#LoadLocation.
    localLoc, err := time.LoadLocation("Local")
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(`Failed to load location "Local"`)
    }
    localDateTime := dte.In(localLoc)

    fmt.Println("Date:", localDateTime.Format(dateFormat))
    fmt.Println("Time:", localDateTime.Format(timeFormat))
}