Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 10:18 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> As far as I can see, that would completely destroy the use-case of
>> trying to parse a string where there's not non-digit delimiters and
>> so you have to take exactly the specified number of digits, not more.
> Yeah, I thought about that, but it seems that use case is already
> hopelessly broken in both PostgreSQL and Oracle, so I'm disinclined to
> worry about it.
How so?
regression=# select to_date('20110321', 'YYYYMMDD'); to_date
------------2011-03-21
(1 row)
regression=# select to_date('110321', 'YYMMDD'); to_date
------------2011-03-21
(1 row)
If you break the latter case, I am sure the villagers will be on your
doorstep shortly.
regards, tom lane