On 2000-01-19, Thomas Lockhart mentioned:
> Hmm. I *think* I state a clear preference in the User's Guide. Is
Yeah, they say datetime is the "best general date and time" type.
> there another place to mention this? Should we be more explicit?? If
> we're going to fix it up, we need some suggestions ;)
The users still look at 8 different types and which gets mapped to what in
"some future release". I was thinking along the lines of
DATE/TIME TYPES
We have these (SQL compat.) types: timestamp, date, time, interval
[ these four types have clearly distinct functionality, so there is no
need for "preferences" ]
<body of description here>
Appendix/Note:
To ensure compatibility to earlier versions of PostgreSQL we also continue
to provide datetime (equivalent to timestamp), timespan (equivalent to
interval). The types abstime and reltime are lower precision types which
are used internally. You are discouraged from using any of these types in
new applications and move your old ones over where appropriate. Any or all
of these type might disappear in a future release. [ 7.1 or 7.2 I guess ]
If you want me to help writing something like this up, tell me.
I'd also envision a similar change to the documentation of the numerical
types. The way it currently looks is "Okay, this is what those standard
guys say and this is what _we_ say. You can use the standard stuff but our
stuff gets is implemented natively, so it's your pick."
This is by no means to bash the documentation writers, I just like the
idea of supporting standard SQL over Postgres'isms where both are
equivalent. See also CAST vs ::, etc.
--
Peter Eisentraut Sernanders väg 10:115
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