Re: BUG #6028: age() function output contracts "months", but not any other units.

"Martin A. Brooks" <martin@antibodymx.net> writes:
> On Mon, May 23, 2011 19:02, Tom Lane wrote:
>> ISTM that changing interval's output formatting would create far too
>> many problems to be justifiable for such a purely cosmetic issue.

> I almost entirely agree with you except....

> My current $dayjob is working in an industry where details and aesthetics
> are everything.  We will spend thousands of hours of processor time just
> to make sure than the sheen on an animal's fur will suggest "healthy and
> luxuriant" rather than "warm and moist".  It's about artistic polish.

> If people are agreeing that this is not the intended, desrired or
> specified output for this function, then make with the polish.  It isn't
> the first, and won't be the last, time that something has potentially
> broken compatibility in postgres.

I think possibly you misunderstand the scope of the breakage you're
proposing.  This is not about the age() function.  It's interval_out()
that's at stake, and so changing this would change the output formatting
for *every* operation that yields intervals.  That makes it pretty
high-risk.

            regards, tom lane