Thread: problem with casting

I have a table that has a 'date' column. In psql I tried to do a 

select proofdate::text from openjobs where jobno = '10625';

responce:   can not cast type 'date' to 'text'

Did i miss-read this section. I thought I could cast the date to text. has anyone seen 
this or am I missreading the docs?

thanks 

Ted

Ted,

> responce:   can not cast type 'date' to 'text'
> 
> Did i miss-read this section. I thought I could cast the date to text. has anyone seen
> this or am I missreading the docs?

'fraid so.   You cannot cast Date as Text, because (presumably) the DB
engine doesn't know how you want to format the date.  Instead, use the
to_char builtin function, as defined in the docs:
http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/7.0/postgres/functions2976.htm

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-Josh Berkus

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In data Wed, 14 Feb 2001 21:10:30 +0000 (UTC), postgresql scrive:
>I have a table that has a 'date' column. In psql I tried to do a 
>
>select proofdate::text from openjobs where jobno = '10625';
>
>responce:   can not cast type 'date' to 'text'
>
>Did i miss-read this section. I thought I could cast the date to text. has anyone seen 
>this or am I missreading the docs?
>
select to_char(proofdate, 'dd/mm/yyyy') from openjobs where jobno = '10625';