AW: BUG #17924: Inverted behavior of "Date" and "Reverse Date" when searching a mailbox archive - Mailing list pgsql-bugs

From Hans Buschmann
Subject AW: BUG #17924: Inverted behavior of "Date" and "Reverse Date" when searching a mailbox archive
Date
Msg-id 0dfc8fde847c49b38f7106bbd3140fd9@nidsa.net
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: BUG #17924: Inverted behavior of "Date" and "Reverse Date" when searching a mailbox archive  (Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>)
List pgsql-bugs

Hello Tom,


I don't mind the exact wording, but it should be semantically correct.


Order by date is ascending (as in SQL).


I would propose to change the wording, perhaps like Newest to oldest (or your suggestion) and make sure, that the selected order shows up in the results.


It is only part of the WebSite, so I don't fear any automation difficulties.


Hans Buschmann


Von: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Gesendet: Sonntag, 7. Mai 2023 16:05
An: Hans Buschmann
Cc: pgsql-bugs@lists.postgresql.org
Betreff: Re: BUG #17924: Inverted behavior of "Date" and "Reverse Date" when searching a mailbox archive
 
PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
> When changing the order of the result set from "Rank" to "Reverse Date" I
> observed that "Date" gives the results from newest to oldest while "Reverse
> Date" gives them from oldest to newest.
> This seems to me a mismatch and quite confusing.
> The semantics of Date and Reverse Date should be corrected (exchanged)

It's been like that for a decade or two, and you are the first to
complain AFAIR.  Changing it at this point would doubtless add a
lot more confusion than it subtracts.

We could perhaps change to some other terms entirely, like
"Newest First" and "Oldest First", but I'm not convinced that
that's an improvement either.

                        regards, tom lane

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