"ktm@rice.edu" <ktm@rice.edu> writes:
> On Thu, Aug 28, 2014 at 03:33:56PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
>> So the standard requires storing of original timezone in the data type?
>> I was not aware of that.
> I do not have a copy of the SQL 92 spec, but several references to the
> spec mention that it defined the "time zone" as a format "SHH:MM" where
> S represents the sign (+ or -), which seems to be what PostgreSQL uses.
Yeah, the spec envisions timezone as being a separate numeric field
(ie, a numeric GMT offset) within a timestamp with time zone. One of
the ways in which the spec's design is rather broken is that there's
no concept of real-world time zones with varying DST rules.
Anyway, I agree with the upthread comments that it'd have been better
if we'd used some other name for this datatype, and also that it's
at least ten years too late to revisit the choice :-(.
regards, tom lane