What is the `zero` value for time.Time in Go?

Question

In an error condition, I tried to return nil, which throws the error:

cannot use nil as type time.Time in return argument

What is the zero value for time.Time?

Answer 1

Invoking an empty time.Time struct literal will return Go's zero date. Thus, for the following print statement:

fmt.Println(time.Time{})

The output is:

0001-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC

For the sake of completeness, the official documentation explicitly states:

The zero value of type Time is January 1, year 1, 00:00:00.000000000 UTC.

Answer 2

You should use the Time.IsZero() function instead:

func (Time) IsZero

or

func (t Time) IsZero() bool

IsZero reports whether t represents the zero time instant, January 1, year 1, 00:00:00 UTC.

Answer 3

The zero value for time.Time is 0001-01-01 00:00:00 +0000 UTC See http://play.golang.org/p/vTidOlmb9P