How Can I Reliably Set the Global Timezone in Go Applications?

Setting Timezone Globally in Go: Exploring Options

In Go, setting the timezone globally affects how time-related functions behave. By default, the timezone is initialized based on the environment variable TZ or system files like /etc/localtime. However, there are scenarios where you may need to modify this setting programmatically.

Issue with os.SetEnv("TZ")

One approach is to use os.SetEnv("TZ", "Africa/Cairo") in the app initialization phase. However, this may not always work as expected. To ensure that the timezone is set before any other package accesses the time package, it's important to create a separate package for timezone initialization.

Creating a Timezone Initialization Package

package tzinit

import (
    "os"
)

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

Importing the Timezone Initialization Package

Import this package as the first import in your main package:

package main

import _ "path/to/tzinit"

// Your other imports...

This ensures that the timezone is set before any other package uses the time package.

Note:

It's important to ensure that multiple source files are supplied to the compiler in lexical order. While current compilers process imports as listed, the order is not guaranteed by the Go spec.

Alternative Approach: Setting the Environment Variable

For reliability, it's recommended to set the TZ environment variable before the Go app is launched. This can be done in the Dockerfile or by setting the environment variable in the host system for the application process.

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