Re: BUG #16419: wrong parsing BC year in to_date() function

Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 1:26 PM Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>> I think this is nuts. The current behavior is obviously broken;
>> we should just treat it as a bug and fix it, including back-patching.
>> I do not think there is a compatibility problem of any significance.
>> Who out there is going to have an application that is relying on the
>> ability to insert BC dates in this way?

> I think that's entirely the wrong way to look at it. If nobody is
> using the feature, then it will not break anything to change the
> behavior, but on the other hand there is no reason to fix the bug
> either. But if people are using the feature, making it behave
> differently in the next minor release is going to break their
> applications. I disagree *strongly* with making such changes in stable
> branches and feel that the change to those branches should be
> reverted.

By that logic, we should never fix any bug in a back branch.

regards, tom lane