Re: A creepy story about dates. How to prevent it?

From: Ron Johnson <ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net>
To: pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: A creepy story about dates. How to prevent it?
Date: 2003-06-22 23:39:40
Message-ID: 1056325180.10234.5.camel@haggis
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On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 15:47, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> Ron Johnson wrote:
> > On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 12:46, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > Ron Johnson wrote:
> > > > On Sun, 2003-06-22 at 00:05, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > > Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Reading the subject, "creepy ... dates", that is exactly how I feel
> > > > > > about the described current date behavior --- "creepy".
> > > > > >
> > > > > > Because I have only seen one person defend our current behavior, and
> > > > > > many object, I am going to add to TODO:
> > > > > >
> > > > > > * Allow current datestyle to restrict dates; prevent month/day swapping
> > > > > > from making invalid dates valid?
> > > > > > * Prevent month/day swapping of ISO dates to make invalid dates valid
> > > > >
> > > > > I added a question mark to the first item so we can consider it later.
> > > > > Most agreed on the second item, but a few thought the first one might be
> > > > > OK as is.
> > > >
> > > > How about situations where reversing the month and date would
> > > > still have "valid but wrong" dates, based upon the LOCALE mask?
> > > >
> > > > I.e., "05/04/2003" is "05-April-2003" or "04-May-2003", depending
> > > > on whether the LOCALE implies "DD/MM/YYYY" or "MM/DD/YYYY".
> > > >
> > >
> > > My assumption is that we already handlle these OK because we base it on
> > > datestyle.
> >
> > According to the OP, no.
>
> Oh, you are right. We base it on datestyle, rather than locale. Is it
> desiarable to default postgresql.conf datestyle to match the locale?
>
> #
> # Locale settings
> #
> # (initialized by initdb -- may be changed)
> LC_MESSAGES = 'C'
> LC_MONETARY = 'C'
> LC_NUMERIC = 'C'
> LC_TIME = 'C'

As long as it's overridable by a "masking set statement", does
it matter? Well, it probably does, for consistency's sake.

P.S. - candle.pha.pa.us rejects email from smtp.east.cox.net
because "Delivery blocked --- Previous SPAM received from your
mail server". That's blocking a *lot* of valid email, since
cox.net is pretty large.

--
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net |
| Jefferson, LA USA http://members.cox.net/ron.l.johnson |
| |
| "Oh, great altar of passive entertainment, bestow upon me |
| thy discordant images at such speed as to render linear |
| thought impossible" (Calvin, regarding TV) |
+-----------------------------------------------------------

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