Re: [Gnumed-devel] simple question about timestamps

[Karsten Hilbert]

> > So, do we need to store the source timezone for our timestamps ?
> Absolutely.
> But I was uynder the impression that a postgrs data type "timestamp" does 
> that 
> anyway.
The postgresql data type <timestamp> is not in the least
equivalent. It does not even preserve *any* time zone
information, eg it completely disregards the time zone issue.
IOW it also gets DST issues wrong.

However, the data type <timestamp with time zone> converts all
timestamp values to seconds since UTC 1.1.2000 midnight.
Assuming the client entering timestamps and the client
retrieving timestamps both correctly set their wanted time
zone all is well. It is, however, not possible for a
retrieving client to find out the original time zone of the
entering client unless that is stored in an extra field.

So, the question remains: Do we need that ? If yes we would
need to use a composite type.

Karsten
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