Re: BUG #16939: Plural interval for negative singular

On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 10:44:15PM -0700, Noah Misch wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 27, 2021 at 04:10:19PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Yes, I found the same like you did. Are you saying we should remove the
> > abs() calls here so we are consistent?
>
> No, I advise just reverting 5da9868. The output funcs should keep doing what
> they did in v13, inconsistency and all.
>
> I was asking the above question to see which of singular or plural was more
> common before $SUBJECT's commit. I count two examples of singular and seven
> examples of plural (one in EVALUATE_MESSAGE_PLURAL(), six modified in commit
> 5da9868). Given that, ...
>
> On Mon, Apr 26, 2021 at 01:06:16PM -0400, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Well, we should then add a comment that this is inconsistent but should
> > not be changed.
>
> ... adding comments to the two places that use abs() to achieve singular "-1"
> sounds fine.

OK, first, I never realized that saying -1 plural was valid. Second,
the two places you showed are actually using abs() properly since
negative values are shown with an "ago" suffix, not a negative sign:

SET intervalstyle = postgres_verbose;

SELECT '2020-01-01 01:03:00'::timestamptz - '2020-01-01 02:02:01'::timestamptz;
?column?
---------------------
@ 59 mins 1 sec ago
(1 row)

Attached is a patch which reverts 9ee7d533da and 5da9868ed9, and adds a
comment about the "ago" usage. The good news is that we were already
consistent in using plural -1. :-)

--
Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

If only the physical world exists, free will is an illusion.