title: What is best practice when storing RFC3339 time in a MySQL database?
body: <p>I have data in a Google Cloud Datastore NoSQL database. The objects in this database contain fields of <a href="https://golang.org/pkg/time/#Time" rel="nofollow">type <code>Time.time</code></a>, specifically RFC3339 format (YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ssTZD). I am moving some of this data into a Google Cloud SQL database and I am wondering what is considered best practice when storing RFC3339 formatted time data in a MySQL database.</p>
  
  <p><a href="http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2014/01/30/timestamps-in-mysql/" rel="nofollow">This post</a> strongly suggests the following:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>All date and time columns shall be <code>INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL</code>, and shall
    store a Unix timestamp in UTC.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>So, should I just make use of <a href="https://godoc.org/time#Time.Unix" rel="nofollow">Golang's <code>func (t Time) Unix()</code></a> and store the data that way? What are some alternative approaches to storing the data? What kinds of issues might I run into if I don't heed the poster's advice?</p>