From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: David G Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
cc: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: The IYYY mess again
In-reply-to: <1419879652755-5832322.post@n5.nabble.com>
References: <5888.1419865569@sss.pgh.pa.us>
 <1419879652755-5832322.post@n5.nabble.com>
Comments: In-reply-to David G Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
 message dated "Mon, 29 Dec 2014 12:00:52 -0700"
Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 14:12:31 -0500
Message-ID: <17676.1419880351@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Precedence: bulk
Sender: pgsql-docs-owner@postgresql.org

David G Johnston <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> writes:
> Tom Lane-2 wrote
>> There is a warning against combining IYYY with MM/DD, but it's buried
>> in trivia far down the page.

> Can we move this warning/notice into code?  Basically warn/disallow
> IYYY-MM-DD (and similar) as a valid format?

> And why not make it an error.  If someone really needed to output mixed
> modes they would be able to concatenate the two halves together to get the
> desired result so it isn't like we are making it impossible to accomplish -
> but the typical mistake goes away.

I would say no, and no.  It's not at all unreasonable to want to print
"YYYY-MM-DD (IYYY-IDDD)" or something like that.  And even if we think
it's dumb, it's not to_char()'s place to tell people they can't print
silly combinations.  One could argue in fact that the only reason for
to_char() to live at all is to print "silly" combinations --- otherwise,
you might as well just cast your timestamp to text.

			regards, tom lane


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