Re: [HACKERS] Replication vs. float timestamps is a disaster

On 2017-02-22 08:43:28 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> writes:
> > On 2017-02-22 00:10:35 -0600, Jim Nasby wrote:
> >> I wounder if a separate "floatstamp" data type might fit the bill there. It
> >> might not be completely seamless, but it would be binary compatible.
> 
> > I don't really see what'd that solve.
> 
> Seems to me this is a different name for what I already tried in
> <27694.1487456324@sss.pgh.pa.us>.  It would be much better than doing
> nothing, IMO, but it would still leave lots of opportunities for mistakes.

It sounded more like Jim suggested a full blown SQL type, given that he
replied to my concern about the possible need for a deprecation period
due to pg_upgrade concerns.  To be useful for that, we'd need a good
chunk of magic, so all existing uses of timestamp[tz] are replaced with
floattimestamp[tz], duplicate some code, add implicit casts, and accept
that composites/arrays won't be fixed.  That sounds like a fair amount
of work to me, and we'd still have no way to remove the code without
causing pain.


> 1. Just patch the already-identified float-vs-int-timestamp bugs in as
> localized a fashion as possible, and hope that there aren't any more and
> that we never introduce any more.  I find this hope foolish :-(,
> especially in view of the fact that what started this discussion is a
> newly-introduced bug of this ilk.

Well, the newly introduced bug was just a copy of the existing code.
I'm far less negative about this than you - we're not dealing with a
whole lot of code here. I don't get why it'd be foolish to verify the
limited amount of code dealing with replication protocol timestamp.

> 4. Give up on float timestamps altogether.
> 
> While I'm generally not one to vote for dropping backwards-compatibility
> features, I have to say that I find #4 the most attractive of these
> options.  It would result in getting rid of boatloads of under-tested
> code, whereas #2 would really just add more, and #3 at best maintains
> the status quo complexity-wise.

> (To be concrete, I'm suggesting dropping --disable-integer-datetimes
> in HEAD, and just agreeing that in the back branches, use of replication
> protocol with float-timestamp servers is not supported and we're not
> going to bother looking for related bugs there.  Given the lack of field
> complaints, I do not believe anyone cares.)

I think we should just fix it in the back branches, and drop the float
timestamp code in 10 or 11.  I.e. 1) and then 4).

Greetings,

Andres Freund