MySQL: setting time_zone in my.cnf options file

Question

In MySQL you can set a session variable called time_zone to change the timezone. This is useful e.g. when looking at timestamps from another country. Here is an example:

mysql> select now();
+---------------------+
| now()               |
+---------------------+
| 2010-12-30 18:59:18 |
+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> set time_zone='Brazil/East';
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> select now();
+---------------------+
| now()               |
+---------------------+
| 2010-12-30 09:59:29 |
+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Is it possible to put that in an option file e.g. .my.cnf ?

When I try, it doesn't work. All I get is:

mysql: unknown variable 'time_zone=Brazil/East'

Answer 1

it should be

default_time_zone=Brazil/East

details : http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/server-system-variables.html#sysvar_time_zone

Option-File Format = default_time_zone

Answer 2

I'm not certain what has changed in Xampp, but this solution only works if you place this line in the proper place. Trust me I tried many times and had to do a pretty thorough search to find this solution.

default-time-zone = "+00:00"

Example:

read_rnd_buffer_size = 512K
myisam_sort_buffer_size = 8M
default-time-zone = "+00:00" <--- Place here.
log_error = "mysql_error.log"

https://community.apachefriends.org/f/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=47656

Also, you'll want to be sure that you have your database populated with the proper time zone names if you are going to use "America/Los_Angeles". I'd recommend using the offset. I'd actually recommend using UTC as your base then converting your time from that point for users based on their timezone which will save you many headaches later and keep your database nice and uniform. Check out the guide I linked below it explained it very clearly for me and I utilized this system. There are many ways to code it but taking this approach will save you a lot of issues.

http://www.vertabelo.com/blog/technical-articles/the-proper-way-to-handle-multiple-time-zones-in-mysql