Re: BUG #4862: different results in to_date() between 8.3.7 & 8.4.RC1

Brendan Jurd <direvus@gmail.com> writes:
> I think we can safely conclude from these results that Oracle pays no
> attention whatsoever to leading spaces in either the input string, or
> the format string.

> If we want to copy this behaviour, I think the best way forward is to
> add some code that deliberately skips over any initial whitespace in
> either string.  Any comments about this approach?  I should be able to
> work up a patch over the next couple days.

I'm hesitant to fool with this post-RC, and we don't have "a couple of
days" to wait for a fix --- 8.4.0 is scheduled to wrap on Thursday.
However, I see that the first of these cases actually represents a
regression from 8.3 and before; existing releases get 2009-03-01 out
of it while 8.4 fails to.  So it seems we'd better do something.

            regards, tom lane