Re: Julian Day 0 question

On 14/12/2007, Andrew Chernow <ac(at)esilo(dot)com> wrote:
> Ran across something that is confusing me. The docs for to_char
> indicates that julian day 0 is January 1, 4712 BC at midnight.
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/functions-formatting.html
>
> When I run to_char, I don't get 0 for that date.
>
> postgres=# select to_char('4712-01-01 BC'::date, 'J');
> to_char
> ---------
> 404
>
> I get julian day 0 for 4714-11-24 BC.
>
> postgres=# select to_char('4714-11-24 BC'::date, 'J');
> to_char
> ---------
> 0
>
> Output of 'select version()'
>
> PostgreSQL 8.3devel on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc
> (GCC) 4.1.1 20070105 (Red Hat 4.1.1-52)
>
> andrew
>

there is more strange things

postgres=# select to_date('0', 'J');
to_date
---------------
0001-01-01 BC
(1 row)

it's wrong, correct is probably ERROR: timestamp out of range

postgres=# select to_date('1', 'J');
to_date
---------------
4714-11-25 BC
(1 row)

Regards
Pavel Stehule