Thread: timestamp convert to date

Hi List !

I'm running "PostgreSQL 8.3.10 on i486-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC gcc-4.3.real (Ubuntu 4.3.3-5ubuntu4) 4.3.3" (Ubuntu 9.04)

I want to use -infinity,infinity as my date interval maximum endpoints in an application I'm writing .
Is it possible to use date ?
I did a test but it looks like date doesn't support infinity as a value.
However this looks like it doesn't give an error either:

select 'infinity'::timestamp::date;

it just gives me a blank row in pgadmin3 query window.
So is infinity supposed to work with date or should this conversion give an error ?

It would be really nice with the possibility to use infinity with the date type.

Regards
//Dan

Dan S <strd911@gmail.com> writes:
> I did a test but it looks like date doesn't support infinity as a value.

Try 8.4 or later.

            regards, tom lane

Thank you very much for the quick answer !

I'm considering installing the upcoming 9.0 beta instead of 8.4.
Will it be available as an installable ubuntu 9.04 package ?
I have not tried to install a beta release before so I'm a bit worried about crashing my
8.3.10 install which works now.
Is there a description or manual page on how to install a beta in paralell with my 8.3.10 installation ?

regards
//Dan