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From: Tom Lane <[email protected]>
To: Celia McInnis <[email protected]>
Cc: pgsql-generallists.postgresql.org <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: is there an immutable function to switch from date to character?
Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2024 17:54:56 -0400
Message-ID: <[email protected]> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <CAGD6t7+GykxBs=BVeg2un_rQOrjXz==pXt-UWFVTNCgeYCSB5A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGD6t7+GykxBs=BVeg2un_rQOrjXz==pXt-UWFVTNCgeYCSB5A@mail.gmail.com>

Celia McInnis <[email protected]> writes:
> create temporary table junk as select now()::date as evtdate;
> alter table junk add column chardate text GENERATED ALWAYS AS
> (to_char(evtdate,'YYYY-Mon-DD')) STORED;

> ERROR:  generation expression is not immutable

Probably not; I think all the available conversion functions
respond to some combination of datestyle, lc_time, and timezone
settings.  (Type date doesn't depend on timezone, but that keeps you
from using anything that shares functionality with timestamptz ...
and your to_char call promotes the date to timestamptz.)

I find your example not terribly compelling.  Why expend storage
space on such a column?

If you're bound and determined to do it, writing a wrapper
function that's labeled immutable should work:

=# create function mytochar(date) returns text
strict immutable parallel safe
as $$ begin return to_char($1::timestamp, 'YYYY-Mon-DD'); end $$
language plpgsql;
CREATE FUNCTION
=# alter table junk add column chardate text GENERATED ALWAYS AS
(mytochar(evtdate)) STORED;
ALTER TABLE

It's on you to be sure that the function actually is immutable,
or at least immutable enough for your use-case.  I believe my
example is pretty safe: neither datestyle nor timezone should
affect the timestamp-without-timezone variant of to_char(),
and this particular format string doesn't depend on lc_time.

			regards, tom lane

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