Re: BUG #5490: Using distinct for select list causes insert of timestamp string literal to fail

On Fri, Jun 4, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Farid Zidan <farid@zidsoft.com> wrote:
> If a simple SQL statement works on 9+ different databases

For what it's worth are you sure it works as you expect in these other
databases?

I suspect what they're doing is doing a DISTINCT of the text values
and then converting the results. That's not the same as what you're
suggesting it do (insert distinct timestamp values) since different
text values can represent the same timestamp. For example look at what
this does:

 select cast(x as timestamp with time zone) from (select distinct x
from (values ('2010-01-01 12:00PM UTC'), ('2010-01-01 7:00AM EST')) as
x(x)) as y;

If you inserted those values into a table with a timestamp with time
zone column you would get duplicate values even with the distinct.

This is the problem with depending on non-standard extensions. You're
never really sure that they're working. They be working on some
systems but doing something unexpected on other systems.

--
greg