Re: A creepy story about dates. How to prevent it?

From: Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: Ron Johnson <ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net>
Cc: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: A creepy story about dates. How to prevent it?
Date: 2003-06-22 20:47:05
Message-ID: 200306222047.h5MKl5x15518@candle.pha.pa.us
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Ron Johnson wrote:
> On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 12:46, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 00:05, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Reading the subject, "creepy ... dates", that is exactly how I feel
> > > > > about the described current date behavior --- "creepy".
> > > > >
> > > > > Because I have only seen one person defend our current behavior, and
> > > > > many object, I am going to add to TODO:
> > > > >
> > > > > * Allow current datestyle to restrict dates; prevent month/day swapping
> > > > > from making invalid dates valid?
> > > > > * Prevent month/day swapping of ISO dates to make invalid dates valid
> > > >
> > > > I added a question mark to the first item so we can consider it later.
> > > > Most agreed on the second item, but a few thought the first one might be
> > > > OK as is.
> > >
> > > How about situations where reversing the month and date would
> > > still have "valid but wrong" dates, based upon the LOCALE mask?
> > >
> > > I.e., "05/04/2003" is "05-April-2003" or "04-May-2003", depending
> > > on whether the LOCALE implies "DD/MM/YYYY" or "MM/DD/YYYY".
> > >
> >
> > My assumption is that we already handlle these OK because we base it on
> > datestyle.
>
> According to the OP, no.

Oh, you are right. We base it on datestyle, rather than locale. Is it
desiarable to default postgresql.conf datestyle to match the locale?

#
# Locale settings
#
# (initialized by initdb -- may be changed)
LC_MESSAGES = 'C'
LC_MONETARY = 'C'
LC_NUMERIC = 'C'
LC_TIME = 'C'

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
+ If your life is a hard drive, | 13 Roberts Road
+ Christ can be your backup. | Newtown Square, Pennsylvania 19073

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