I am experimenting with exclusion constraints via Depesz's excellent introduction here:
http://www.depesz.com/index.php/2010/01/03/waiting-for-8-5-exclusion-constraints/
In the example, he uses non-overlapping (day) dates for hotel booking. In my case, I would like to use the same
datatypebut allow for timestamps to overlap on the boundaries, so that I can store a continuous timeline of state.
CREATE TABLE test.x
(
validfrom TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE NOT NULL DEFAULT now(),
validto TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE,
CHECK(validfrom < COALESCE(validto,'infinity'::timestamptz)),
CONSTRAINT overlapping_validity EXCLUDE USING GIST(
box(point(extract(epoch FROM validfrom AT TIME ZONE 'UTC'),0),
point(extract(epoch FROM validto AT TIME ZONE 'UTC'),1))
WITH &&
)
);
INSERT INTO test.x(validfrom,validto) VALUES ('2010-08-08 10:00:00 UTC','2010-08-08 11:00:00 UTC'); --success
INSERT INTO test.x(validfrom,validto) VALUES ('2010-08-08 11:00:00 UTC','2010-08-08 12:00:00 UTC'); --failure, but
shouldsucceed in my design
INSERT INTO test.x(validfrom,validto) VALUES ('2010-08-08 10:30:00 UTC','2010-08-08 11:00:00 UTC'); --proper failure
I considered adding a fudge factor to the box values, but that feels prone to failure in edge cases (why can't I have a
valuethat is valid for one second?).
Do I need to write a new box operator which checks ignores overlap at the edges or is a better way to accomplish this?
Thanks.
Cheers,
M