Re: Does anyone use TO_CHAR(INTERVAL)?

Tomasz, Peter,

> I already know all of these things (look at thread "Formatting
> intervals" dated on 2003-03-17). I was just thinking about intervals
> idea. Keeping time inside interval is good. Keeping months inside
> interval also looks good, but keeping both of them doesn't make sense.
> It is impossible to use these fields together without referring them to
> some real date.

However illogical the current bahavior may seem, it *is* the SQL92/99
specification, so we're keeping it.

I personally use INTERVAL heavily for calendaring applications. I got into a
discussion with Thomas Lockhart last year about how INTERVAL treats daylight
savings time -- which is seriously problematic from a calendar designer's
perspective -- and was turned down by the core team wanting to change the
behavior.

Regrettably, even though the ANSI committee made a few mistakes with
DATE/TIME, they *are* the ANSI committee and PostgreSQL as a project is very
firmly committed to standards.

--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco