Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2016 11:07:53 -0700
From: Mavka <mavka_temp@mail.ru>
To: pgsql-docs@postgresql.org
Subject: Date formatting
Message-ID: <20160428110753.2700f00d@nikita_desk>
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To convert a string to date I need to omit meaningless parts. I found
this format working well (Twitter dump format):

SELECT to_timestamp(
  'Tue Sep 24 08:56:18 +0000 2013',
  'xxx Mon DD HH24:MI:SS xxxxx YYYY'
)
-- 2013-09-24 08:56:18-07

In place of "xxx" I can use any non-reserved symbols, e.g.:

'aaa Mon DD HH24:MI:SS bbbbb YYYY'

Number of symbols can vary in some limits, e.g. 'aa' is still working.

Is it hack or normal behaviour of parser? I did not find any mention of
wildcards or placeholders in documentation:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.5/static/functions-formatting.html

Best regards,
Mavka

P.S. I use PostgreSQL 9.4.


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