How Can I Reliably Set the Global Timezone in a Go Application?

Setting Global Timezone in Go

In Go, the timezone is typically set through the environment variable TZ. While setting this variable in Docker containers or via Bash works, an alternative method is to use the os.SetEnv function in your Go application. However, this approach can fail if other packages have already accessed the time package.

To ensure that os.SetEnv sets the timezone before any other package accesses time, you can use the following solution:

1. Create a Package for Timezone Initialization:

   Create a separate package named tzinit with the following code:

   package tzinit
   
   import (
       "os"
   )
   
   func init() {
       os.Setenv("TZ", "Africa/Cairo")
   }

2. Import tzinit First in Main Package:

   In your main package, import the tzinit package as the first import statement:

   package main
   
   import _ "path/to/tzinit"
   
   // Other imports

By importing tzinit first, you ensure that it sets the timezone before any other package accesses the time package.

Note:

While setting the TZ environment variable from within the Go application works in most cases, it is recommended to set this variable before launching the Go app for consistent and deterministic behavior.

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