Re: Additional current timestamp values

Neil Conway wrote:
> Bruce Momjian wrote:
> >     <function>CURRENT_TIMESTAMP</> might not be the
> >     transaction start time on other database systems.
> >     For this reason, and for completeness,
> >     <function>transaction_timestamp</> is provided.
>
> Well, transaction_timestamp() is even more unlikely to be the
> transaction start time on other database systems :) If the user wants
> non-standard syntax for getting the timestamp at which the current
> transaction began, we already have now().

True, which is why I brought it up.  I think a good argument can be made
that we don't need two non-standard ways of specifying the transaction
timestamp, but we need to decide that as a group.

> > One trick is that these should be the same:
> >
> >     test=> SELECT statement_timestamp(), transaction_timestamp();
>
> Should they be? It seems quite reasonable to me that the DBMS begins a
> transaction internally (setting transaction_timestamp()), and then a
> short while later begins executing the statement submitted by the user,
> at which point statement_timestamp() is set.
>
> Perhaps ensuring they are identical for single-statement transactions is
> the best behavior, I just don't think this is required behavior.

Yea, perhaps it isn't required, but it seems like a good idea.  It will
avoid confusion and seems logical.  :-)

> > And these should be the same:
> >
> >     $ psql -c '
> >     INSERT INTO t VALUES (statement_timestamp());
> >     INSERT INTO t VALUES (statement_timestamp());' test
> >     INSERT 0 1
>
> Uh, why should these be the same?

This gets into cases where a single statement generates more than one
parsenode, e.g. rules.  We want all the parse nodes to have the same
timestamp.

We had a long discussion that the statement time isn't really
meaningful/logical, so I went with code that said the statement arrival
time is the proper time to return, and be consistent.

--
  Bruce Momjian   http://candle.pha.pa.us
  SRA OSS, Inc.   http://www.sraoss.com

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