Issues with EPOCH-s, TIMESTAMP(TZ)-s and leap seconds.
Ellen Allhatatlan <ellenallhatatlan@gmail.com>
From: Nem Tudom <ellenallhatatlan@gmail.com>
To: pgsql-general <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Date: 2025-01-27T21:01:59Z
Lists: pgsql-general
Hi all, I'm having trouble understanding matters related to TIMESTAMP(TZ)-s and leap seconds - my machine runs on UTC so as to remove any issues related to the zones. From here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leap_second, There have been 27 leap seconds added to UTC since 1972. But, when I run this fiddle (see bottom of this email link) https://dbfiddle.uk/wxvmzfJb (first snippet - 2015 -> 2016) I get a "nice" even number for the EPOCH of, 00:00:00 2016 , say (= 1451606400) - now, with 27 leap seconds since 1972, I would expect that number to be (something like) 1451606427? I thought that the EPOCH was the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00? Is this incorrect? Also, (first snippet again), why is the TIMESTAMPTZ 23:59:60 2015 even allowed? Now, we come to the second snippet (2016 -> 2017), I get *_exactly_* the same behaviour! I was expecting to see that '2016-12-31 23:59:60'::TIMESTAMPTZ would work (leap second) and then that '2017-01-01 00:00:00'::TIMESTAMPTZ would have incremented by 1 second? I'm puzzled. Does PostgreSQL take leap seconds into account? Does anyone? Any help, advice, recommendations, URL-s, references &c. appreciated. E...