Re: timezone incompatibility

> This isn't a jdbc issue so I am forwarding to general.

Hmm. Why is it not a jdbc issue? There is a documented, consistant, and
altogether reasonable behavior from the database (imho of course ;). If
there is a Java spec that somehow time zones must be respected for
decades and centuries when there was no such concept even defined, then
it would seem to fall on jdbc to implement that idea.

The symptom is that a time from 1756 is entered with an explicit time
zone. PostgreSQL accepts that. On query, the time is returned in GMT,
without any claim for a time zone at all:

lockhart=# select timestamp with time zone
lockhart-# 'Sun Jun 20 20:16:54 CEST 1756';
timestamptz
---------------------
1756-06-20 18:16:54

So although the date is not returned with an explicit "GMT" for the time
zone, it is not claiming to be CEST either.

What different behavior would we need to get JDBC to infer the expected
result? It may be we need to change *both* JDBC and PostgreSQL, but
certainly changing just PostgreSQL won't fix the problem (at least
without introducing troubles for others).

- Thomas

> >I'm testing our auto-configuration persistence framework (acp) against
> >several databases and now that it comes to PostgreSQL, I run into a timezone
> >incompatibility compared to other jdbc-drivers/databases. The framework
> >tests the database specific datatypes by inserting a value, retrieving it
> >and comparing the result. Here is the result for timestamp:
> >
> > Insert and Retrieve of SQLType 93 test value <Sun Jun 20 20:16:54 CEST
> >1756> failed. Retrieved after insert: <Sun Jun 20 18:16:54 CEST 1756>
> >
> >I tried it with a test value in 1992 and the test passes.
> >Okay, the docs say:
> >"PostgreSQL uses your operating system's underlying features to provide
> >output time-zone support, and these systems usually contain information for
> >only the time period 1902 through 2038 (corresponding to the full range of
> >conventional Unix system time)."
> >
> >But nevertheless, I feel sick with this behaviour, to me it seems not to be
> >correct and it makes PostgreSQL incompatible to other databases. The
> >databases I have tested so far retrieve the correct date before 1902.
> >
> >
> >regards
> >Wolfgang
> >
> >
> >
> >Dr. Wolfgang Winter
> >LogiTags Systems
> >http://www.logitags.com
> >
> >---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> >TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
> >
> >
> >