Re: timestamps in Australia

Jasen Betts <jasen(at)xnet(dot)co(dot)nz> writes:
> set timezone to 'Australia/Sydney';
> set timezone_abbreviations to 'Australia';
> set datestyle to 'SQL,DMY';

> select '2011-04-03 01:00'::timestamptz+generate_series(0,3)*'1h'::interval,generate_series(0,3);

> notice how the middle two look the same.
> (this is Australias DST change-back)

Yeah, we just follow the Olson timezone database here, and they
intentionally don't change the abbrevation between Aussie standard
and summer time. See the notes starting about line 650 in
src/timezone/data/australasia --- this issue is apparently of very
long standing and has been debated repeatedly.

> How do the Australians handle this?

I'd go with Paul Eggert's advice in the aforementioned notes:

# Here I tend to agree with the point (most recently made by Chris
# Newman) that unique abbreviations should not be essential for proper
# operation of software. We have other instances of ambiguity

IOW, don't rely on those abbreviations to mean anything.

regards, tom lane