Thread

1. interval( 'seconds 27960' ) is broken

   PostgreSQL Bugs List <pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org> — 2001-05-08T00:33:42Z

   elein (elein@nextbus.com) reports a bug with a severity of 1
   The lower the number the more severe it is.
   
   Short Description
   interval( 'seconds 27960' ) is broken
   
   Long Description
   In 7.0.3, I'm converting seconds from midnight to a time of
   day using interval ( 'seconds <val>').  This worked fine in 
   7.0.3 and gives a Bad interval external representation message
   in 7.1.
   
   I'm marking this devastating because it falls under the criteria of not being able to input valid data.  And my
   application depends on this conversion.
   
   I see there were a lot of clean up changes in the date/time/stamp functions, but was not able to pinpoint
   the change that caused the problem.
   
   A good workaround would reduce this problem to major annoyance.
   
   Sample Code
   In 7.0.3:
   elein=# select interval( 'seconds 27960');
    ?column? 
   ----------
    07:46
   (1 row)
   
   In 7.1:
   elein=# select interval( 'seconds 27960');
   ERROR:  Bad interval external representation 'seconds 27960'
   
   
   No file was uploaded with this report
   
   
   

2. Re: interval( 'seconds 27960' ) is broken

   Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> — 2001-05-08T01:46:10Z

   pgsql-bugs@postgresql.org writes:
   > In 7.0.3, I'm converting seconds from midnight to a time of
   > day using interval ( 'seconds <val>').  This worked fine in 
   > 7.0.3 and gives a Bad interval external representation message
   > in 7.1.
   
   This has never been the intended or documented format; it should
   be '<val> seconds'.  Allowing both is ambiguous, so I'd say that
   the behavior change is a correct one.
   
   			regards, tom lane
   
   

3. Re: interval( 'seconds 27960' ) is broken

   Thomas Lockhart <lockhart@alumni.caltech.edu> — 2001-05-08T07:15:48Z

   > > In 7.0.3, I'm converting seconds from midnight to a time of
   > > day using interval ( 'seconds <val>').  This worked fine in
   > > 7.0.3 and gives a Bad interval external representation message
   > > in 7.1.
   > This has never been the intended or documented format; it should
   > be '<val> seconds'.  Allowing both is ambiguous, so I'd say that
   > the behavior change is a correct one.
   
   In fact, the leading "seconds" label in the above example was never
   actually used. What was happening was that the bare "<val>" was
   interpreted as having units of seconds, and the leading label had no
   effect.
   
   It may help to notice that interval parsing proceeds from right to left,
   mostly to allow the units specifier (e.g. "seconds") to be read before
   the actual value. A leading units specifier is simply ignored, since
   there is no value to the left for it to apply to.
   
   In 7.1, a unitless number is not allowed for an interval, at least
   partly because SQL9x requires time zones to be considered intervals
   under some conditions. So the default handling of intervals had to be
   consistant with that usage.
   
   I would recommend specifying things as "interval ( '<val> seconds' )".
   
                         - Thomas