Re: UUID v7

From: Aleksander Alekseev <aleksander(at)timescale(dot)com>
To: pgsql-hackers mailing list <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Cc: Przemysław Sztoch <przemyslaw(at)sztoch(dot)pl>, Andrey Borodin <x4mmm(at)yandex-team(dot)ru>, Sergey Prokhorenko <sergeyprokhorenko(at)yahoo(dot)com(dot)au>, Jelte Fennema-Nio <postgres(at)jeltef(dot)nl>, Nick Babadzhanian <pgnickb(at)gmail(dot)com>, Mat Arye <mat(at)timescaledb(dot)com>, Peter Eisentraut <peter(dot)eisentraut(at)enterprisedb(dot)com>, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>, Daniel Gustafsson <daniel(at)yesql(dot)se>, Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres(at)gmail(dot)com>, Nikolay Samokhvalov <samokhvalov(at)gmail(dot)com>, "Kyzer Davis (kydavis)" <kydavis(at)cisco(dot)com>, Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de>, "brad(at)peabody(dot)io" <brad(at)peabody(dot)io>, Kirk Wolak <wolakk(at)gmail(dot)com>
Subject: Re: UUID v7
Date: 2024-01-19 11:07:31
Message-ID: CAJ7c6TPKKJAH-05LEfRODGyMrUEG9wmtk1j5xwX_a_HJ5SNW-A@mail.gmail.com
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Hi,

> No.
>
> Timestamp and TimestampTz are absolutely the same thing. The only
> difference is how they are shown to the user. TimestampTz uses session
> context in order to be displayed in the TZ chosen by the user. Thus
> typically it is somewhat more confusing to the users and thus I asked
> whether there was a good reason to choose TimestampTz over Timestamp.
>
>
> Theoretically, you're right. But look at this example:
>
> SET timezone TO 'Europe/Warsaw';
> SELECT extract(epoch from '2024-01-18 9:27:30'::timestamp), extract(epoch from '2024-01-18 9:27:30'::timestamptz);
>
> date_part | date_part
> ------------+------------
> 1705570050 | 1705566450
> (1 row)
>
> In my opinion, timestamptz gives greater guarantees that the time internally is in UTC and the user gets the time in his/her time zone.

I believe you didn't notice, but this example just proves my point.

In this case you have two timestamps that are different _internally_,
but the way they are _shown_ is the same because the first one is in
UTC and the second one in your local session timezone, Europe/Warsaw.
extract(epoch ...) extract UNIX epoch, i.e. relies on the _internal_
representation. This is why you got different results.

This demonstrates that TimestampTz is a permanent source of confusion
for the users and the reason why personally I would prefer if UUIDv7
always used Timestamp (no Tz). TimestampTz can be converted to
TimestampTz by users who need them and have experience using them.

--
Best regards,
Aleksander Alekseev

In response to

  • Re: UUID v7 at 2024-01-18 20:39:41 from Przemysław Sztoch

Browse pgsql-hackers by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Andrew Dunstan 2024-01-19 11:11:40 Re: Simplify documentation related to Windows builds
Previous Message shveta malik 2024-01-19 10:55:06 Re: Synchronizing slots from primary to standby