Re: Precision of data types and functions

On Fri, 2006-09-01 at 13:33, Brandon Aiken wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Scott Marlowe [mailto:smarlowe(at)g2switchworks(dot)com]
> Sent: Friday, September 01, 2006 2:27 PM
> To: Brandon Aiken
> Cc: pgsql general
> Subject: RE: [GENERAL] Precision of data types and functions
>
> On Fri, 2006-09-01 at 13:24, Brandon Aiken wrote:
> > > Now, MySQL's design to 9-fill fields when you try to enter a
> too-large
> > > number is, in fact, stupid on MySQL's part. I consider that silent
> > > truncation. Heck, MySQL lets you create a date on February 31st, or
> > > prior to the year 1500, both of which are obviously nonsensical.
> >
> > What's nonsensical about a date before the year 1500??? it's not like
> > that didn't exist or something.
> > The Gregorian calendar was established in the 1500's by Pope Gregory,
> > so, no, those dates did not exist.
>
> That makes no sense whatsoever. Just because the calendar is a somewhat
> modern invention doesn't mean that the year 45 BC doesn't exist... How
> else are we to keep track of dates from before that time? Switch to the
> Mayan calendar? I'm pretty sure no one's made a Mayan Calendar
> extension for PostgreSQL (or any other database) just yet.
>
> test=> insert into test values ('1023-04-12 BC');
> INSERT 2124397005 1
> test=> insert into test values ('1023-04-12');
> INSERT 2124397005 1
> test=> select * from test;
> t
> ------------------------
> 1023-04-12 00:00:00
> 1023-04-12 00:00:00 BC
> (2 rows)
> Of course the year exists. The date itself is nonsensical, however.
>
> 'January 3, 648' does reference a valid day, but the date itself has no
> meaning at that time in the world, so there is very little meaning in
> using Gregorian dates except to give us a relativistic idea of when it
> occurred. Nevertheless, you can never say with specificity anything
> that occurred on any given date prior to the inception of the Gregorian
> calendar without doing conversions to a calendar no longer in use while
> taking into account the numerous error corrections that have been made
> to various calendars. Knowing the year and season something happened is
> about the best that can be expected.

Never the less, you can input dates before 1500 in PostgreSQL and almost
any other database. It's not a failing of MySQL nor PostgreSQL that
they can accept dates before 1500.