Re: BUG #6028: age() function output contracts "months", but not any other units.

On Wed, May 18, 2011 at 3:40 PM, Bruce Momjian <bruce(at)momjian(dot)us> wrote:
> Martin A. Brooks wrote:
>>
>> The following bug has been logged online:
>>
>> Bug reference:      6028
>> Logged by:          Martin A. Brooks
>> Email address:      martin(at)antibodyMX(dot)net
>> PostgreSQL version: 9.0.4
>> Operating system:   Debian/GNU Linux 6
>> Description:        age() function output contracts "months", but not any
>> other units.
>> Details:
>>
>> Hi
>>
>> postgres=# select age(now(),'1973-12-20'::timestamp);
>>                    age
>> -----------------------------------------
>>  37 years 4 mons 28 days 15:33:49.041831
>> (1 row)
>>
>>
>> Note "mons" and not "months".  And if "mons", why not "yrs" and "dys"?
>
> I was hoping someone else knew a good answer to this question, but now
> that no one replied --- I have no idea on it was done this way.  I think
> this code came from Berkeley.  My guess is that the spelling was based
> on the libc struct tm field names:
>
>           int tm_mday;    /* day of month (1 - 31) */
>           int tm_mon;     /* month of year (0 - 11) */
>           int tm_year;    /* year - 1900 */
>
> The only clear answer I can think of is that "month" has five letters,
> and "year" and "day" have less then five letters.  :-|
>
> Does anyone feel this is worth changing?  I am concerned such a change
> would break many user applications.

The backward compatibility problem is pretty icky, but I don't much
like the idea of leaving it as-is, either.

--
Robert Haas
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