On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 11:33:26AM -0600, Manuel Sugawara wrote:
> Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz> writes:
>
> > > This example shows another issue. With localized month and day names
> > > the hardcoded paddings doesn't make sense any more since you may have
> > > a month name longer than 9 chars -septiembre- as instance.
> >
> > Magic "9 chars" is nice and popular Oracle feature :-)
It was irony :-) I don't know why Oracle has this stupid feature, butif we want be compatible, we must use it too....
> You think so?, May be it was in the teletype or monospaced display
> times. But now? I don't think so.
>
> > The "9 chars" can be used for English locales only.
>
> May be add a GUC, something like useless_oracle_compatibility turned
> on by default (for the backwards compatibility). Believe me, the
I not sure with some global switch like 'useless_oracle_compatibility',here must be way how use old and new features
togetherwithoutrestriction.
> paddings are mostly useless those days where aplications tends to use
> more the web or graphical interfaces than terminals or teletypes.
Yesterday I forgot important note: if to_char() will support localesfor datetime output it must be implemented as _new_
feature.It meansthis new implementation must be backward compatible for all currentformat definition. For example:
to_char(now(), 'Month') _must_forever_output_: 'December '
and this output must be independent on locales setting. It's important, because a lot of application depend of current
outputformat.If someone wants use locale depend output must be possibleset it by some format suffix, for example:
to_char(now(), 'LCMonth')
(to_char() already knows work with suffixes, for example FM). And mustbe possible mix it in one format definition:
to_char(now(),'LCMonth Month')
-output-> 'Xxxxxx December '
where 'Xxxxxx' is the Month from locales and 'December ' is outputcompatible with current (Oracle) to_char() and is
localeindependen.
This solve a problem with "9 Chars", because all non-locales outputor compilation without locales support will use it
likenow.
It's very simular to number formatting by to_char(). There is two patterns for decimal point, 'D' -- for locale depend
deciamlpointand '.' -- for "standard" locales independend. With Months/Days it must be same.
Right?
Karel
-- Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>http://home.zf.jcu.cz/~zakkr/C, PostgreSQL, PHP, WWW, http://docs.linux.cz,
http://mape.jcu.cz