Re: IDL modifications request

[Rodrigo Moya <rodrigo linuxave net>]

> On Sun, Sep 24, 2000 at 11:22:44AM +0100, Nick Gorham wrote:
> > Vivien wrote:
> > 
> > > Hi!
> > >
> > > I'm in the process of updating the Postgres provider, and I think we should
> > > modify the IDL for date/times data types:
> > > 1) The struct DbTime would need an information about the timezone (if the
> > > information is given)
> > > 2) The same for struct DbTimestamp.
> > > 3) A new type would be nice: to store intervals: from a date/time to another.
> > 
> > INTERVALS would be useful for ODBC as well, but not quite in that format,
> > SQL92's intervals come in two types YEAR-MONTH and DAY-SECOND's , so
> > 
> > INTERVAL '10-5' YEAR TO MONTH would indicate a interval of ten years and 5
> > months, and INTERVAL '10 5:12' DAY TO MINUTE would indicate ten days 5 hours and
> > 12 minutes. the YEAR MONTH and DAY SECONDS types are distinct and cannot be
> > mixed. Just having a interval as two timestamps would make it diffucult (though
> > not impossible ) to encode these types. ODBC uses the following structure to
> > store them
> > 
> 
> Under Postgres there are two kinds of intervals: the one I just mentionned
> above, and the one you are mentionning which is just the time difference
> between two dates. In the first case the dates are given (and the new type
> would be nice for this) and in the second case, just the time separating the 
> dates is given (what you are talking about).
> 
> For what you are talking, under postgres, it is represented as a timestamp,
> and I don't have any idea of how to restrict it under ODBC. But I agree with
> you that it should be taken care of.
> 
I have never used this kind of intervals you're talking about, so I
can't put my 2 cents here. So, please decide yourselves what is the best
way of supporting them for both ODBC and PostgreSQL (and others), and
we'll do that.

Anyway, the IDL changes won't take place before the release is made,
which I'm working on right now, so please just wait a little bit.

cheers