MARIADB-TZINFO-TO-SQL(1)

💖 mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql — the manual page, but make it cute 💖

okay bestie, so this is the manual for mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql(1) from the MariaDB Database System, and it's literally the glow-up your time zone tables have been waiting for. let's get into it 🦋

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✨ NAME ✨

mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql — load the time zone tables (and yes, mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql is now a symlink to mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql, iconic behavior honestly, she contains multitudes 💅)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql arguments

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🎀 DESCRIPTION 🎀

so like, the mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql program loads the time zone tables in the mysql database. that's the whole vibe. 🫶

it's made for systems that have a zoneinfo database (aka the set of files that describe time zones — the whole clock lore). examples of such systems are Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, and Mac OS X. one likely location for these files is the /usr/share/zoneinfo directory (and on Solaris it's /usr/share/lib/zoneinfo, not me knowing that, i just read it 😌).

mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql can be invoked several ways, and they're all valid, she's flexible:

shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql tz_dir
shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql tz_file tz_name
shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql --leap tz_file
shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql --skip-write-binlog tz_dir

🧚 invocation number one: the directory drop 🧚

for the first invocation syntax, you pass the zoneinfo directory path name to mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql and send the output into the mariadb program. for example:

shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql /usr/share/zoneinfo | mariadb -u root mysql

mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql reads your system's time zone files and generates SQL statements from them. then mariadb processes those statements to load the time zone tables. it's giving pipeline, it's giving teamwork 🔥

🦋 invocation number two: one (1) single time zone 🦋

the second syntax causes mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql to load a single time zone file tz_file that corresponds to a time zone name tz_name:

shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql tz_file tz_name | mariadb -u root mysql

💜 invocation number three: leap second era 💜

if your time zone needs to account for leap seconds (dramatic, love that for you), invoke mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql using the third syntax, which initializes the leap second information. tz_file is the name of your time zone file:

shell> mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql --leap tz_file | mariadb -u root mysql

💫 the skip-write-binlog moment 💫

using the --skip-write-binlog option prevents writing of changes to the binary log or to other Galera cluster members. no cap. and lowkey the best part — this can be used with any form of running mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql. versatile queen 👑

okay so real talk: after running mariadb-tzinfo-to-sql, it is best to restart the server so that it does not continue to use any previously cached time zone data. like, please restart. she's holding onto old data and it's not the vibe. 🙈

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👑 COPYRIGHT 👑

Copyright 2007-2008 MySQL AB, 2008-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc., 2010-2025 MariaDB Foundation

This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1335 USA or see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

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🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

For more information, please refer to the MariaDB Documentation, available online at https://mariadb.com/docs/

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⭐ AUTHOR ⭐

MariaDB Foundation (http://www.mariadb.org/).

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💖 this was MariaDB 11.8, dated 5 March 2025, and you just read MARIADB-TZINFO-TO-SQL(1) in full. go load those time zone tables, you absolute main character 🎀✨