Re: Re: [BUGS][PATCH] BUG #14486: Inserting and selecting interval have different constraints

Vitaly Burovoy <vitaly(dot)burovoy(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On 1/5/17, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> We could think about replacing interval2tm's output format with some
>> other struct that uses a TimeOffset for hours and so cannot overflow.
>> I'm not sure though how far the effects would propagate; it might be
>> more work than we want to put into this.

> If values with overflow are already in a database, what do you expect
> a new output function should fix?

My point is that ideally, any value that can physically fit into struct
Interval ought to be considered valid. The fact that interval_out can't
cope is a bug in interval_out, which ideally we would fix without
artificially restricting the range of the datatype.

Now, the problem with that of course is that it's not only interval_out
but multiple other places. But your proposed patch also requires touching
nearly everything interval-related, so I'm not sure it has any advantage
that way over the less restrictive answer.

regards, tom lane