Re: Timestamp Conversion Woes Redux

On 22-Jul-05, at 12:30 PM, Kevin Grittner wrote:

> Argh!  I've found some comments on this thread confusing, and I've
> discovered the source of this confusion -- I was thinking that a
> column
> defined as type "timestamp with time zone" would store a time zone
> with
> the timestamp.  (Really, I did read the documentation on data
> types, but
> the discussion of how this data type is implemented slid right out
> of my
> head.)  I will have to review everything with the actual
> implementation
> in mind; I now see why this is more complicated than I thought.
>
> Could someone confirm that a timestamp column in a PostgreSQL database
> never contains time zone data, regardless of whether or not the "with
> time zone" clause was used in its definition.
yes, that is correct.
> It seems to me that, if
> you ignore internals of how the data is stored (which an application
> programmer never need see), the only difference between "timestamp
> with
> time zone" and "timestamp without time zone" is whether a time zone
> specified in a literal will (a) be used to determine what moment the
> timestamp represents or (b) be ignored in favor of using the server's
> time zone to determine what moment the timestamp represents.  In
> either
> case, the value returned when querying the column will be based on the
> server's time zone.  Do I have that right?
That  is my understanding yhest.
>
> -Kevin
>
>
>
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