Re: timestamps cannot be created without time zones - Mailing list pgsql-bugs

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: timestamps cannot be created without time zones
Date
Msg-id 200108241455.f7OEtHg00709@candle.pha.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: timestamps cannot be created without time zones  (Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>)
Responses Re: timestamps cannot be created without time zones  (Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net>)
List pgsql-bugs
> Tom Lane writes:
>
> > Timezone handling in PG is dependent on the underlying OS' timezone
> > database, which doesn't go back further than 1901 in any Unix that
> > I've heard of.  You should realize of course that the very notion of
> > timezone was only standardized in the 1800s, so attaching a timezone
> > to dates much older than that would be a dubious practice anyway...
>
> Thus Rainer's point is that when having times both before and after 1901
> in the same data set you get inconsistencies.  This seems like a good
> reason to introduce a true 'timestamp without time zone' type.

Let me see if I follow here.  If I am in the Eastern timezone and enter
a time for 9pm, 1/1/1850, and someone else in the Central timezone
enters the same time, if I look at the two dates from the Eastern
timezone I will see mine as 9pm and the other as 10pm?

Wow, I wonder if that is bad?

It seems I would mix these in a table so it is the underlying data
representation that may be the problem.  Yikes.

--
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

pgsql-bugs by date:

Previous
From: Tom Lane
Date:
Subject: Re: Bug #427: joining views
Next
From: Bruce Momjian
Date:
Subject: Re: Bug #424: JDBC driver security issue.