time zone class method? (DT::F::MySQL)

[Matt Sisk]

Was there a compelling reason not to have a class method analagous to 
DefaultLocale() for timezones, such as DefaultTimezone()?

And if it were present, am I alone in finding it useful for the Format 
modules, such as DT::F::MySQL, where the zoneless strings are forced 
into the 'floating' timezone?

Although it is not strictly true that MySQL is timezone agnostic. You 
could construct a local datetime using the result of MySQL's 
UNIX_TIMESTAMP() function with DateTime's from_epoch() and set the tz to 
'local' -- the unix timestamp returned from MySQL appears to observe the 
timezone of the local machine.

As it now stands, DT::F::MySQL does not behave symmetrically for local 
DateTimes:

 use DateTime;
 use DateTime::Format::MySQL;
 $F = 'DateTime::Format::MySQL';

 $now = DateTime->now(time_zone => 'local');
 print "now:  ", $now->datetime, "\n";
 print "tz:   ", $now->time_zone_long_name, "\n";
 $mdt = $F->format_datetime($now);
 print "mdt:  $mdt\n";
 $now = $F->parse_datetime($mdt);
 print "now2: ", $now->datetime, "\n";
 print "tz2:  ", $now->time_zone_long_name, "\n";
 $now->set_time_zone('local');
 print "now2: ", $now->datetime, "\n";
 print "tz2:  ", $now->time_zone_long_name, "\n";
In order to get symmetry, you have to first set_time_zone('UTC') to 
convert from 'floating', then set_time_zone('local') to get back to the 
original time.

Am I going about this the wrong way?

Thanks,
Matt