mysql - How to convert time to the time zone of the iPhone device?

Question

I have a time in EST timezone, it is done using the NOW() function on the mysql server. Because my server is located in EST, the time stored is in EST. When I retrieve it from my app on the iPhone, I need to display it in the correct time zone of the user. How do I do that?

Answer 1

I think it depends on what you mean by EST - if you mean East Coast US, then in general, that is 5 hours behind UTC (but not accounting for daylight saving), which should give you 04:00 EST. Try to avoid using abbreviations where possible, as they are ambiguous, e.g. EST is the abbreviation for both America/Detroit and Australia/Sydney. Using NSTimeZone initWithName will give more precise results.

The Chronos Time Zone Repository provides a nicely readable XML timezone database that really helps in understanding how time zones work (it's all rather messy and changeable).