On Thursday, June 23, 2016, Robert Haas <robertmh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 23, 2016 at 1:12 PM, David G. Johnston > <david.g.johns...@gmail.com <javascript:;>> wrote: > > to_timestamp with its present behavior is, IMO, a poorly designed > function > > that would never be accepted today. Concrete proposals for either > fixing or > > deprecating (or both) are welcome. Fixing it should not cause > unnecessary > > errors to be raised. > > Sheesh. Who put you in charge of this? You basically seem like you > are trying to shut up anyone who supports this change, and I don't > think that's right. > I'm all for a change in this area - though I'm not impacted enough to actually work on a design proposal. And I'm not sure how asking for ideas constitutes trying to shut people up. Especially since if no one does float a proposal we'll simply have this discussion next year when someone new discovers how badly behaved this function is. > My main point is that I'm inclined to deprecate it. > > I can almost guarantee that would make a lot of users very unhappy. > This function is widely used. > > Tell people not to use. We'd leave it in, unchanged, on backward compatibility grounds. This seems like acceptable behavior for the project. Am I mistaken? > > My second point is if you are going to use this badly designed function > you > > need to protect yourself. > > I agree that anyone using this function should test their format > strings carefully. > > > My understanding is that is not going to change for 9.6. > > That's exactly what is under discussion here. > > Ok. I'm having trouble seeing this justified as a bug fix - the docs clearly state our behavior is intentional. Improved behavior, yes, but that's a feature and we're in beta2. Please be specific if you believe I've misinterpreted project policies on this matter. David J.
