Re: DateStyle

On Fri, Aug 10, 2001 at 02:07:01PM +1000, Mike Withers wrote:
> Can anyone tell if it is possible (and if yes how) to use a datestyle like:
> II-AAA-IIII

to_char should be able to help you there. However, that's for explicit
conversions, not the default format.

> The reason I'm asking is that building a database to be compatible in
> format to an Oracle database. Also it seems to me that whatever digit only
> ordering one uses that it can be confusing to an outsider querying a
> database unless they know the format whereas the format I'm looking for is
> unambiguous.

Well, I always insist on yyyy-mm-dd because it's standard ISO date format
and has certain nice features. It's also unambiguous. (Note, postgres did at
some stage support yyyy-dd-mm which is so stupid I'd like to kill the person
who thought of it).

> A possible solution I thought of would be store the date as characters but
> I'm not sure if I could date manipulation (like days between dates) using
> characters as the data.

Don't store them as strings. To do so means you lose all the cool functions
relating to dates.

# select to_char('10-jul-2001'::date,'dd-Mon-YYYY');
   to_char
-------------
 10-Jul-2001

Is that enough?

HTH,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org>
http://svana.org/kleptog/
> It would be nice if someone came up with a certification system that
> actually separated those who can barely regurgitate what they crammed over
> the last few weeks from those who command secret ninja networking powers.