Re: Floating-point timestamps versus Range Types

Jeff Davis <pgsql@j-davis.com> writes:
> On Sun, 2010-10-17 at 16:17 -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> There is maybe some argument for removing the float timestamp code
>> altogether, but I think that that's probably premature.  They were
>> still the default in 8.3, and we are still supporting in-place upgrade
>> from 8.3.

> Regarding Josh Drake's comment, do you have any insight about when
> Redhat will start to ship with integer timestamps? That seems like the
> determining factor for when we can deprecate floating-point timestamps.

At the earliest, we could consider dropping them when we drop support
for in-place upgrade from 8.3 --- not only direct upgrade, but through
multiple pg_upgrade steps.  That's assuming that we think there are
no users who are depending on float timestamps for functionality (they
have a wider range than int timestamps don't they?).  I don't believe
that Red Hat's choices enter into this in the slightest: they aren't
doing anything different from users who compile from source.

Anyway the short answer seems to be that we can consider dropping them
when we next break on-disk compatibility.
        regards, tom lane