Re: Bug in to_timestamp().

On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 1:40 PM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 1:12 PM, David G. Johnston
>> <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> My understanding is that is not going to change for 9.6.
>
>> That's exactly what is under discussion here.
>
> I would definitely agree with David on that point.  Making to_timestamp
> noticeably better on this score seems like a nontrivial project, and
> post-beta is not the time for that sort of thing, even if we had full
> consensus on what to do.  I'd suggest somebody work on a patch and put
> it up for review in the next cycle.
>
> Now, if you were to narrowly define the problem as "whether to skip
> non-spaces for a space in the format", maybe that could be fixed
> post-beta, but I think that's a wrongheaded approach.  to_timestamp's
> issues with input that doesn't match the format are far wider than that.
> IMO we should try to resolve the whole problem with one coherent change,
> not make incremental incompatible changes at the margins.
>
> At the very least I'd want to see a thought-through proposal that
> addresses all three of these interrelated points:
>
> * what should a space in the format match
> * what should a non-space, non-format-code character in the format match
> * how should we handle fields that are not exactly the width suggested
> by the format

I'm not averse to some further study of those issues, and I think the
first two are closely related.  The third one strikes me as a somewhat
separate consideration that doesn't need to be addressed by the same
patch.

-- 
Robert Haas
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