Re: to_json(now()) result doesn't have 'T' separator

On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 4:24 PM, Joe Van Dyk <joe(at)tanga(dot)com> wrote:

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> On Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 4:18 PM, Joe Van Dyk <joe(at)tanga(dot)com> wrote:
>
>> # select to_json(now());
>> to_json
>> ---------------------------------
>> "2013-12-20 15:53:39.098204-08"
>> (1 row)
>>
>> I'd like to see it output "2013-12-20T15:53:39.098204-08" so it's
>> interchangeable with more systems.
>>
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> Actually, "2013-12-20T15:53:39.44553-08:00" would be ideal.
>

I dug into the docs some more, and I found this at
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.3/static/datatype-datetime.html:
"Note: ISO 8601 specifies the use of uppercase letter T to separate the
date and time.PostgreSQL accepts that format on input, but on output it
uses a space rather than T, as shown above. This is for readability and for
consistency with RFC 3339 as well as some other database systems."

So I looked up RFC 3339 (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3339.txt) and read:
"NOTE: ISO 8601 defines date and time separated by "T". Applications
using this syntax may choose, for the sake of readability, to specify a
full-date and full-time separated by (say) a space character."

Doesn't seem like including the 'T' separator would be inconsistent with
RFC 3399?

I'm sending the output of to_json(now()) to web browsers. Most browsers
aren't able to parse the date strings if they are missing the 'T'
separator. If datetime strings could include the 'T' time separator and the
full timezone, that would make generating json that worked with web
browsers much simpler.

Joe

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>>
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>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601#Combined_date_and_time_representationssays 'T' can be omitted "by mutual agreement".
>>
>> I'm working with javascript/json systems that expect the 'T' to be there
>> however, so there's no mutual agreement happening.
>>
>> Thoughts? I know I can hack around it by specifying my own date format,
>> but I'd really like to be able to use row_to_json and other functions
>> without specifying custom date formats everywhere.
>>
>> Joe
>>
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