Re: DATE_PART('field', INTERVAL) not intuitive literal reading of interval

On Tue, May 22, 2018 at 10:55:14AM +0000, PG Doc comments form wrote:
> The following documentation comment has been logged on the website:
>
> Page: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/functions-datetime.html
> Description:
>
> the result of
> t=# SELECT DATE_PART('month', '2018-05-31'::timestamp -
> '2018-02-24'::timestamp);
> date_part
> -----------
> 0
> (1 row)
>
> looks correct, but not intuitive, maybe we need a NB for:
>
> t=# SELECT DATE_PART('month', justify_interval('2018-05-31'::timestamp -
> '2018-02-24'::timestamp));
> date_part
> -----------
> 3
> (1 row)
>
> https://stackoverflow.com/questions/50465632/postgresql-10-4-date-difference/50465676#50465676

This is really a function of how interval computes months, days, and
seconds from subtraction, which is outlined here:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/datatype-datetime.html#DATATYPE-INTERVAL-INPUT

I don't think adding something to the functions-datetime.html section
makes sense. For example, this returns 1:

SELECT extract(minutes from '1 hour 1 minute'::interval);
date_part
-----------
1

(Uh, it is kind of odd for EXTRACT to return a date_part column label.)
The point is that the subtraction doesn't justify the values.

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Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> http://momjian.us
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