Storing time information

A common problem is storing date/time information in databases, files, and so on in a portable manner, so that it can be interpreted correctly.

How to do it...

You should first identify the exact needs: do you need to store an instant of time or time of day?

• To store an instant of time, do one of the following:
  • Store Unix time at the needed granularity (that is, time.Unix for seconds, time.UnixMilli for milliseconds, etc.)
  • Store UTC time (time.UTC())
• To store the time of day, store the time.Duration value that gives the instant in the day. The following function computes the instant within that day as time.Duration:

  func GetTimeOfDay(t time.Time) time.Duration {
    beginningOfDay:=time.Date(t.Year(),t.Month(),t.
    Day(),0,0,0,0,t.Location())
    return t.Sub(beginningOfDay)
  }

• To store a date value, you can clear the time portions of time.Time:

  date:=time.Date(t.Year(), t.Month(), t.Day(), 0,0,0,0,t.Location())

  Note...