The following bug has been logged online:
Bug reference: 3563
Logged by: Randolf Richardson
Email address: randolf+postgresql.org@inter-corporate.com
PostgreSQL version: 8.2.4
Operating system: NetBSD 4 (beta), NetBSD 3.1, NetWare 6.5
Description: DATESTYLE feature suggestion
Details:
After convincing clients and colleagues to switch from Oracle (and others)
to PostgreSQL, an issue that comes up is the need to customize DATESTYLE.
Because this isn't possible, the developers who were against the move to
PostgreSQL make it political and recommended work-around solutions such as
using to_char() or implementing a view for each table that contain
TIMESTAMP[TZ]s is very difficult to argue with management because a lot of
time is required to implement these items.
In a future version, to solve this problem, an additional DATESTYLE option
that uses the same rules as the to_char() function for date formatting would
solve this problem. Here's an example:
SET DATESTYLE = 'Custom YYYY-Mon-DD';
This feature would not only resolve this particular political strife, but
would also solve many other problems, including simplifying coding for raw
SQL output serving as reports (e.g., users still get confused about dates
like "2007-06-03," wondering if they refer to June 3rd, or March 6th).
I'm hoping that this suggestion will be an easy one to implement.
Thanks in advance.
P.S.: I searched around for a "feature suggestions" page but couldn't find
it (if one exists, it should be linked to from the "Report a Bug" page).