Function parameter type precision modifiers ignored.

Hi,
I don't know if this is a bug as such, but the behaviour certainly
confused me for a while : -

Given the following PostgreSQL functions:

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION fn_dtm (
dtm timestamptz(0))
RETURNS void AS $$
BEGIN
RAISE NOTICE 'fn: %, %', dtm, dtm::timestamptz(0);
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION fn_num (
num numeric(5, 2))
RETURNS void AS $$
BEGIN
RAISE NOTICE 'num: %, %', num, num::numeric(5, 2);
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

Would you expect the output of these functions to show the result as per
the type declared in the function parameter?

I was very surprised to find that the precision was retained and shown
in the "NOTICE" despite the parameter type limiting the precision.

Is this a bug or am I just thinking about it the wrong way?

Here is the output:

db=> SELECT fn_dtm(now());
NOTICE: fn: 2015-02-05 10:25:44.184+00, 2015-02-05 10:25:44+00

db=> SELECT fn_num(1.23456789);
NOTICE: num: 1.23456789, 1.23

I am using PostgreSQL 9.3.

CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION fn_dtm (
dtm timestamptz(0))
RETURNS void AS $$
BEGIN
dtm = dtm::timestamptz(0); ----- CHANGE PRECISION
RAISE NOTICE 'fn: %', dtm;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

Gives:

db=> SELECT fn_dtm(now());
NOTICE: fn: 2015-02-05 10:38:38+00

I don't know if the behaviour is documented anywhere (sorry if I've
missed it), but not knowing this really confused me for a good couple of
hours. For fun here was the scenario : -

1) For my monitoring system I have a readings table. In my readings
table I store the timestamp only to a 1 second precision (timestamptz(0)).

2) When a new "live" reading comes in, I use "now()" to get the
timestamp. I then pass this to another function with the reading
parameters, including a time argument (of type timestamptz(0)) which
gets passed now()). Lets say now() is 2015-02-05 16:35:38.923.

3) The new reading gets stored in the database, and since the field type
is timestamptz(0) it gets rounded up to (2015-02-05 16:35:39).

4) If the new reading indicates an alarm state, I do a pg_notify to send
an event to my app which includes the passed in timestamp. Now I
assumed because of the parameter type this would not include
milliseconds, so naturally I ignore anything after the seconds when I
parse the notification event.. So I end up with 2015-02-05 16:35:38.
Spot the difference to the stored timestamp?

5) The application then periodically loads the readings in alarm from
the database based on the events received. So I do SELECT ..... WHERE
reading_dtm = '2015-02-05 16:35:38' etc. Obviously nothing is returned
as the timestamp is out by one second (except where the original reading
timestamp was not rounded up).

I've fixed it by just doing p_reading_dtm =
p_reading_dtm::timestamptz(0) at the start of my function. Seems odd
though when the parameter type is already timestamptz(0).

Regards,
Mark.
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