Re: [HACKERS] Date/time types: big changeu

Tom Lane wrote:
  >Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
  >>> Also, I've changed the default date style to "ISO" (not just in
  >>> time for Y2K, but we'll be ready for "Y3K").
  >
  >> I think we need a consensus on this.  I think this may be a problem for
  >> some people.  Comments?
  >
  >Good point.  Perhaps there should be a way to select the default date
  >style at configure or initdb time.  I don't mind if the "default default"
  >is ISO, but if I had apps that were dependent on the old default setting
  >I'd sure be annoyed by this change...
  >
  >Has anyone thought much about the fact that beginning next year,
  >heuristics to guess which field is the year will become nearly useless?
  >Quick, when is '01/02/03'?  I suspect a lot of people who got away with
  >not thinking hard about datestyles will suddenly realize that they need
  >to set the default datestyle to whatever they are accustomed to using.

I have code to let the installer choose the default datestyle in Debian's installation script for PostgreSQL.  It makes
itsown best guess on 
the basis of the timezone and then asks the user with its own guess as
the presented default.

See the attached script; I don't know how generalisable the timezone
guessing would be.


Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight                              http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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