Re: BUG #16419: wrong parsing BC year in to_date() function

Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
> On Tue, Sep 29, 2020 at 01:26:29PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> writes:
>>> On Fri, Sep 4, 2020 at 12:45:36PM -0700, David G. Johnston wrote:
>>>> Because we already have the to_date/make_date inconsistency, and the -1
>>>> to -2 BC mapping is confusing, and doesn't match Oracle, I think the
>>>> clean solution is to change PG 14 to treat -1 as 1 BC, and document the
>>>> incompatibility in the release notes.

>>> I agree that someone else should write another patch to fix the behavior for
>>> v14.  Still suggest committing the proposed patch to master and all supported
>>> versions to document the existing behavior correctly.  The fix patch can work
>>> from that.

>> I think this is nuts. The current behavior is obviously broken;
>> we should just treat it as a bug and fix it, including back-patching.
>> I do not think there is a compatibility problem of any significance.
>> Who out there is going to have an application that is relying on the
>> ability to insert BC dates in this way?

> You are agreeing with what I am suggesting then?

Hm, I read your reference to "the release notes" as suggesting that
we should change it only in a major release, ie HEAD only (and it
looks like David read it the same). If you meant minor release notes,
then we're on the same page.

regards, tom lane