lotime

Easily manage global time zones across your Go application. Set a default timezone (like America/New_York) once, and all time operations (Now(), Parse(), etc.) with lotime will automatically use it.

No more repetitive In(location) calls!

import "github.com/codebyzen/lotime"

// Set global timezone (e.g., New-York)
lotime.SetGlobalTimeZone("America/New_York") 

// All operations now use Boston time:
now := lotime.Now()                                                     // Current time in New-York
parsed, _ := lotime.Parse("2006-01-02T15:04:05", "2025-05-05T10:00:00") // Parsed in New-York

✨ Features

• Set a global timezone (e.g., "America/New_York", "UTC-4") for your entire app.
• Thread-safe operations (uses sync.RWMutex under the hood).
• Zero-dependency (only relies on Go’s standard time package).
• Batteries included:
  • Now() – Current time in global timezone.
  • Parse(layout, value) – Parse time in global timezone.
  • SetFixedTimeZone() – Support for custom offsets (e.g., UTC+5:30).
  • Location() – Get the current global timezone.

🚀 Use Cases

• Apps where all timestamps must use a specific timezone.
• Simplify code by avoiding repetitive In(location) calls.
• Testing (override timezone globally for consistent results).

📌 Why lotime?

• No magic: Explicitly set a timezone instead of relying on time.Local.
• Lightweight: ~70 LOC, no external dependencies.
• Idiomatic: Wraps Go’s time package seamlessly.

🔧 Installation

go get github.com/codebyzen/lotime

📄 Example

package main

import (
	"fmt"
	"github.com/codebyzen/lotime"
)

func main() {
	// Set global timezone to Tokyo
	lotime.SetGlobalTimeZone("Asia/Tokyo")

	// All operations now use Tokyo time
	fmt.Println("Current time in Tokyo:", lotime.Now())

	// Parse a date in Tokyo time
	tokyoTime, _ := lotime.Parse("2006-01-02", "2024-12-31")
	fmt.Println("Parsed time:", tokyoTime)
}

⚠️ Caveats

• Not recommended for apps needing per-request timezones (use context instead).
• Timezone names must be valid IANA identifiers (e.g., "Europe/London").
  • But you can use lotime.SetFixedTimeZone("Custom", 5) to set timezone by hours offset instead of naming.

Contributions welcome! 🛠️

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.