8.5. Date/Time Types
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## 8.5. Date/Time Types #

PostgreSQL supports the full set of SQL date and time types, shown in Table 8.9. The operations available on these data types are described in Section 9.9. Dates are counted according to the Gregorian calendar, even in years before that calendar was introduced (see Section B.6 for more information).

Table 8.9. Date/Time Types

Name | Storage Size | Description | Low Value | High Value | Resolution
--- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---
`timestamp [ (`p`) ] [ without time zone ]` | 8 bytes | both date and time (no time zone) | 4713 BC | 294276 AD | 1 microsecond
`timestamp [ (`p`) ] with time zone` | 8 bytes | both date and time, with time zone | 4713 BC | 294276 AD | 1 microsecond
`date` | 4 bytes | date (no time of day) | 4713 BC | 5874897 AD | 1 day
`time [ (`p`) ] [ without time zone ]` | 8 bytes | time of day (no date) | 00:00:00 | 24:00:00 | 1 microsecond
`time [ (`p`) ] with time zone` | 12 bytes | time of day (no date), with time zone | 00:00:00+1559 | 24:00:00-1559 | 1 microsecond
`interval [ `fields` ] [ (`p`) ]` | 16 bytes | time interval | -178000000 years | 178000000 years | 1 microsecond

### Note

The SQL standard requires that writing just `timestamp` be equivalent to `timestamp without time zone`, and PostgreSQL honors that behavior. `timestamptz` is accepted as an abbreviation for `timestamp with time zone`; this is a PostgreSQL extension.

`time`, `timestamp`, and `interval` accept an optional precision value `p` which specifies the number of fractional digits retained in the seconds field. By default, there is no explicit bound on precision. The allowed range of `p` is from 0 to 6.

The `interval` type has an additional option, which is to restrict the set of stored fields by writing one of these phrases:

    YEAR
    MONTH
    DAY
    HOUR
    MINUTE
    SECOND
    YEAR TO MONTH
    DAY TO HOUR
    DAY TO MINUTE
    DAY TO SECOND
    HOUR TO MINUTE
    HOUR TO SECOND
    MINUTE TO SECOND

Note that if both `fields` and `p` are specified, the `fields` must include `SECOND`, since the precision applies only to the seconds.

The type `time with time zone` is defined by the SQL standard, but the definition exhibits properties which lead to questionable usefulness. In most cases, a combination of `date`, `time`, `timestamp without time zone`, and `timestamp with time zone` should provide a complete range of date/time functionality required by any application.

### 8.5.1. Date/Time Input #

Date and time input is accepted in almost any reasonable format, including ISO 8601, SQL-compatible, traditional POSTGRES, and others. For some formats, ordering of day, month, and year in date input is ambiguous and there is support for specifying the expected ordering of these fields. Set the DateStyle parameter to `MDY` to select month-day-year interpretation, `DMY` to select day-month-year interpretation, or `YMD` to select year-month-day interpretation.

PostgreSQL is more flexible in handling date/time input than the SQL standard requires. See Appendix B for the exact parsing rules of date/time input and for the recognized text fields including months, days of the week, and time zones.

Remember that any date or time literal input needs to be enclosed in single quotes, like text strings. Refer to Section 4.1.2.7 for more information. SQL requires the following syntax

    type [ (p) ] 'value'

where `p` is an optional precision specification giving the number of fractional digits in the seconds field. Precision can be specified for `time`, `timestamp`, and `interval` types, and can range from 0 to 6. If no precision is specified in a constant specification, it defaults to the precision of the literal value (but not more than 6 digits).

#### 8.5.1.1. Dates #

Table 8.10 shows some possible inputs for the `date` type.

Table 8.10. Date Input

Example | Description
--- | ---
1999-01-08 | ISO 8601; January 8 in any mode (recommended format)
January 8, 1999 | unambiguous in any `datestyle` input mode
1/8/1999 | January 8 in `MDY` mode; August 1 in `DMY` mode
1/18/1999 | January 18 in `MDY` mode; rejected in other modes
01/02/03 | January 2, 2003 in `MDY` mode; February 1, 2003 in `DMY` mode; February 3, 2001 in `YMD` mode
1999-Jan-08 | January 8 in any mode
Jan-08-1999 | January 8 in any mode
08-Jan-1999 | January 8 in any mode
99-Jan-08 | January 8 in `YMD` mode, else error
08-Jan-99 | January 8, except error in `YMD` mode
Jan-08-99 | January 8, except error in `YMD` mode
19990108 | ISO 8601; January 8, 1999 in any mode
990108 | ISO 8601; January 8, 1999 in any mode
1999.008 | year and day of year
J2451187 | Julian date
January 8, 99 BC | year 99 BC

#### 8.5.1.2. Times #

The time-of-day types are `time [ (`p`) ] without time zone` and `time [ (`p`) ] with time zone`. `time` alone is equivalent to `time without time zone`.

Valid input for these types consists of a time of day followed by an optional time zone. (See Table 8.11 and Table 8.12.) If a time zone is specified in the input for `time without time zone`, it is silently ignored. You can also specify a date but it will be ignored, except when you use a time zone name that involves a daylight-savings rule, such as `America/New_York`. In this case specifying the date is required in order to determine whether standard or daylight-savings time applies. The appropriate time zone offset is recorded in the `time with time zone` value and is output as stored; it is not adjusted to the active time zone.

Table 8.11. Time Input

Example | Description
--- | ---
`04:05:06.789` | ISO 8601
`04:05:06` | ISO 8601
`04:05` | ISO 8601
`040506` | ISO 8601
`04:05 AM` | same as 04:05; AM does not affect value
`04:05 PM` | same as 16:05; input hour must be <= 12
`04:05:06.789-8` | ISO 8601, with time zone as UTC offset
`04:05:06-08:00` | ISO 8601, with time zone as UTC offset
`04:05-08:00` | ISO 8601, with time zone as UTC offset
`040506-08` | ISO 8601, with time zone as UTC offset
`040506+0730` | ISO 8601, with fractional-hour time zone as UTC offset
`040506+07:30:00` | UTC offset specified to seconds (not allowed in ISO 8601)
`04:05:06 PST` | time zone specified by abbreviation
`2003-04-12 04:05:06 America/New_York` | time zone specified by full name

Table 8.12. Time Zone Input

Example | Description
--- | ---
`PST` | Abbreviation (for Pacific Standard Time)
`America/New_York` | Full time zone name
`PST8PDT` | POSIX-style time zone specification
`-8:00:00` | UTC offset for PST
`-8:00` | UTC offset for PST (ISO 8601 extended format)
`-800` | UTC offset for PST (ISO 8601 basic format)
`-8` | UTC offset for PST (ISO 8601 basic format)
`zulu` | Military abbreviation for UTC
`z` | Short form of `zulu` (also in ISO 8601)

Refer to Section 8.5.3 for more information on how to specify time zones.

#### 8.5.1.3. Time Stamps #

Valid input for the time stamp types consists of the concatenation of a date and a time, followed by an optional time zone, followed by an optional `AD` or `BC`. (Alternatively, `AD`/`BC` can appear before the time zone, but this is not the preferred ordering.) Thus:

    1999-01-08 04:05:06

and:

    1999-01-08 04:05:06 -8:00

are valid values, which follow the ISO 8601 standard. In addition, the common format:

    January 8 04:05:06 1999 PST

is supported.

The SQL standard differentiates `timestamp without time zone` and `timestamp with time zone` literals by the presence of a “+” or “-” symbol and time zone offset after the time. Hence, according to the standard,

    TIMESTAMP '2004-10-19 10:23:54'

is a `timestamp without time zone`, while

    TIMESTAMP '2004-10-19 10:23:54+02'

is a `timestamp with time zone`. PostgreSQL never examines the content of a literal string before determining its type, and therefore will treat both of the above as `timestamp without time zone`. To ensure that a literal is treated as `timestamp with time zone`, give it the correct explicit type:

    TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2004-10-19 10:23:54+02'

In a value that has been determined to be `timestamp without time zone`, PostgreSQL will silently ignore any time zone indication. That is, the resulting value is derived from the date/time fields in the input string, and is not adjusted for time zone.

For `timestamp with time zone` values, an input string that includes an explicit time zone will be converted to UTC (Universal Coordinated Time) using the appropriate offset for that time zone. If no time zone is stated in the input string, then it is assumed to be in the time zone indicated by the system's TimeZone parameter, and is converted to UTC using the offset for the `timezone` zone. In either case, the value is stored internally as UTC, and the originally stated or assumed time zone is not retained.

When a `timestamp with time zone` value is output, it is always converted from UTC to the current `timezone` zone, and displayed as local time in that zone. To see the time in another time zone, either change `timezone` or use the `AT TIME ZONE` construct (see Section 9.9.4).

Conversions between `timestamp without time zone` and `timestamp with time zone` normally assume that the `timestamp without time zone` value should be taken or given as `timezone` local time. A different time zone can be specified for the conversion using `AT TIME ZONE`.

#### 8.5.1.4. Special Values #

PostgreSQL supports several special date/time input values for convenience, as shown in Table 8.13. The values `infinity` and `-infinity` are specially represented inside the system and will be displayed unchanged; but the others are simply notational shorthands that will be converted to ordinary date/time values when read. (In particular, `now` and related strings are converted to a specific time value as soon as they are read.) All of these values need to be enclosed in single quotes when used as constants in SQL commands.

Table 8.13. Special Date/Time Inputs

Input String | Valid Types | Description
--- | --- | ---
`epoch` | `date`, `timestamp` | 1970-01-01 00:00:00+00 (Unix system time zero)
`infinity` | `date`, `timestamp`, `interval` | later than all other time stamps
`-infinity` | `date`, `timestamp`, `interval` | earlier than all other time stamps
`now` | `date`, `time`, `timestamp` | current transaction's start time
`today` | `date`, `timestamp` | midnight (`00:00`) today
`tomorrow` | `date`, `timestamp` | midnight (`00:00`) tomorrow
`yesterday` | `date`, `timestamp` | midnight (`00:00`) yesterday
`allballs` | `time` | 00:00:00.00 UTC

The following SQL-compatible functions can also be used to obtain the current time value for the corresponding data type: `CURRENT_DATE`, `CURRENT_TIME`, `CURRENT_TIMESTAMP`, `LOCALTIME`, `LOCALTIMESTAMP`. (See Section 9.9.5.) Note that these are SQL functions and are not recognized in data input strings.

### Caution

While the input strings `now`, `today`, `tomorrow`, and `yesterday` are fine to use in interactive SQL commands, they can have surprising behavior when the command is saved to be executed later, for example in prepared statements, views, and function definitions. The string can be converted to a specific time value that continues to be used long after it becomes stale. Use one of the SQL functions instead in such contexts. For example, `CURRENT_DATE + 1` is safer than `'tomorrow'::date`.

### 8.5.2. Date/Time Output #

The output format of the date/time types can be set to one of the four styles ISO 8601, SQL (Ingres), traditional POSTGRES (Unix date format), or German. The default is the ISO format. (The SQL standard requires the use of the ISO 8601 format. The name of the “SQL” output format is a historical accident.) Table 8.14 shows examples of each output style. The output of the `date` and `time` types is generally only the date or time part in accordance with the given examples. However, the POSTGRES style outputs date-only values in ISO format.

Table 8.14. Date/Time Output Styles

Style Specification | Description | Example
--- | --- | ---
`ISO` | ISO 8601, SQL standard | `1997-12-17 07:37:16-08`
`SQL` | traditional style | `12/17/1997 07:37:16.00 PST`
`Postgres` | original style | `Wed Dec 17 07:37:16 1997 PST`
`German` | regional style | `17.12.1997 07:37:16.00 PST`

### Note

ISO 8601 specifies the use of uppercase letter `T` to separate the date and time. PostgreSQL accepts that format on input, but on output it uses a space rather than `T`, as shown above. This is for readability and for consistency with RFC 3339 as well as some other database systems.

In the SQL and POSTGRES styles, day appears before month if DMY field ordering has been specified, otherwise month appears before day. (See Section 8.5.1 for how this setting also affects interpretation of input values.) Table 8.15 shows examples.

Table 8.15. Date Order Conventions

`datestyle` Setting | Input Ordering | Example Output
--- | --- | ---
`SQL, DMY` | `day`/`month`/`year` | `17/12/1997 15:37:16.00 CET`
`SQL, MDY` | `month`/`day`/`year` | `12/17/1997 07:37:16.00 PST`
`Postgres, DMY` | `day`/`month`/`year` | `Wed 17 Dec 07:37:16 1997 PST`

In the ISO style, the time zone is always shown as a signed numeric offset from UTC, with positive sign used for zones east of Greenwich. The offset will be shown as `hh` (hours only) if it is an integral number of hours, else as `hh`:`mm` if it is an integral number of minutes, else as `hh`:`mm`:`ss`. (The third case is not possible with any modern time zone standard, but it can appear when working with timestamps that predate the adoption of standardized time zones.) In the other date styles, the time zone is shown as an alphabetic abbreviation if one is in common use in the current zone. Otherwise it appears as a signed numeric offset in ISO 8601 basic format (`hh` or `hhmm`).

The date/time style can be selected by the user using the `SET datestyle` command, the DateStyle parameter in the `postgresql.conf` configuration file, or the `PGDATESTYLE` environment variable on the server or client.

The formatting function `to_char` (see Section 9.8) is also available as a more flexible way to format date/time output.

### 8.5.3. Time Zones #

Time zones, and time-zone conventions, are influenced by political decisions, not just earth geometry. Time zones around the world became somewhat standardized during the 1900s, but continue to be prone to arbitrary changes, particularly with respect to daylight-savings rules. PostgreSQL uses the widely-used IANA (Olson) time zone database for information about historical time zone rules. For times in the future, the assumption is that the latest known rules for a given time zone will continue to be observed indefinitely far into the future.

PostgreSQL endeavors to be compatible with the SQL standard definitions for typical usage. However, the SQL standard has an odd mix of date and time types and capabilities. Two obvious problems are:

- Although the `date` type cannot have an associated time zone, the `time` type can. Time zones in the real world have little meaning unless associated with a date as well as a time, since the offset can vary through the year with daylight-saving time boundaries.

- The default time zone is specified as a constant numeric offset from UTC. It is therefore impossible to adapt to daylight-saving time when doing date/time arithmetic across DST boundaries.

To address these difficulties, we recommend using date/time types that contain both date and time when using time zones. We do not recommend using the type `time with time zone` (though it is supported by PostgreSQL for legacy applications and for compliance with the SQL standard). PostgreSQL assumes your local time zone for any type containing only date or time.

All timezone-aware dates and times are stored internally in UTC. They are converted to local time in the zone specified by the TimeZone configuration parameter before being displayed to the client.

PostgreSQL allows you to specify time zones in three different forms:

- A full time zone name, for example `America/New_York`. The recognized time zone names are listed in the `pg_timezone_names` view (see Section 52.32). PostgreSQL uses the widely-used IANA time zone data for this purpose, so the same time zone names are also recognized by other software.

- A time zone abbreviation, for example `PST`. Such a specification merely defines a particular offset from UTC, in contrast to full time zone names which can imply a set of daylight savings transition rules as well. The recognized abbreviations are listed in the `pg_timezone_abbrevs` view (see Section 52.31). You cannot set the configuration parameters TimeZone or log_timezone to a time zone abbreviation, but you can use abbreviations in date/time input values and with the `AT TIME ZONE` operator.

- In addition to the timezone names and abbreviations, PostgreSQL will accept POSIX-style time zone specifications, as described in Section B.5. This option is not normally preferable to using a named time zone, but it may be necessary if no suitable IANA time zone entry is available.

In short, this is the difference between abbreviations and full names: abbreviations represent a specific offset from UTC, whereas many of the full names imply a local daylight-savings time rule, and so have two possible UTC offsets. As an example, `2014-06-04 12:00 America/New_York` represents noon local time in New York, which for this particular date was Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4). So `2014-06-04 12:00 EDT` specifies that same time instant. But `2014-06-04 12:00 EST` specifies noon Eastern Standard Time (UTC-5), regardless of whether daylight savings was nominally in effect on that date.

To complicate matters, some jurisdictions have used the same timezone abbreviation to mean different UTC offsets at different times; for example, in Moscow `MSK` has meant UTC+3 in some years and UTC+4 in others. PostgreSQL interprets such abbreviations according to whatever they meant (or had most recently meant) on the specified date; but, as with the `EST` example above, this is not necessarily the same as local civil time on that date.

In all cases, timezone names and abbreviations are recognized case-insensitively. (This is a change from PostgreSQL versions prior to 8.2, which were case-sensitive in some contexts but not others.)

Neither timezone names nor abbreviations are hard-wired into the server; they are obtained from configuration files stored under `.../share/timezone/` and `.../share/timezonesets/` of the installation directory (see Section B.4).

The TimeZone configuration parameter can be set in the file `postgresql.conf`, or in any of the other standard ways described in Chapter 19. There are also some special ways to set it:

- The SQL command `SET TIME ZONE` sets the time zone for the session. This is an alternative spelling of `SET TIMEZONE TO` with a more SQL-spec-compatible syntax.

- The `PGTZ` environment variable is used by libpq clients to send a `SET TIME ZONE` command to the server upon connection.

### 8.5.4. Interval Input #

`interval` values can be written using the following verbose syntax:

    [@] quantity unit [quantity unit...] [direction]

where `quantity` is a number (possibly signed); `unit` is `microsecond`, `millisecond`, `second`, `minute`, `hour`, `day`, `week`, `month`, `year`, `decade`, `century`, `millennium`, or abbreviations or plurals of these units; `direction` can be `ago` or empty. The at sign (`@`) is optional noise. The amounts of the different units are implicitly added with appropriate sign accounting. `ago` negates all the fields. This syntax is also used for interval output, if IntervalStyle is set to `postgres_verbose`.

Quantities of days, hours, minutes, and seconds can be specified without explicit unit markings. For example, `'1 12:59:10'` is read the same as `'1 day 12 hours 59 min 10 sec'`. Also, a combination of years and months can be specified with a dash; for example `'200-10'` is read the same as `'200 years 10 months'`. (These shorter forms are in fact the only ones allowed by the SQL standard, and are used for output when `IntervalStyle` is set to `sql_standard`.)

Interval values can also be written as ISO 8601 time intervals, using either the “format with designators” of the standard's section 4.4.3.2 or the “alternative format” of section 4.4.3.3. The format with designators looks like this:

    P quantity unit [ quantity unit ...] [ T [ quantity unit ...]]

The string must start with a `P`, and may include a `T` that introduces the time-of-day units. The available unit abbreviations are given in Table 8.16. Units may be omitted, and may be specified in any order, but units smaller than a day must appear after `T`. In particular, the meaning of `M` depends on whether it is before or after `T`.

Table 8.16. ISO 8601 Interval Unit Abbreviations

Abbreviation | Meaning
--- | ---
Y | Years
M | Months (in the date part)
W | Weeks
D | Days
H | Hours
M | Minutes (in the time part)
S | Seconds

In the alternative format:

    P [ years-months-days ] [ T hours:minutes:seconds ]

the string must begin with `P`, and a `T` separates the date and time parts of the interval. The values are given as numbers similar to ISO 8601 dates.

When writing an interval constant with a `fields` specification, or when assigning a string to an interval column that was defined with a `fields` specification, the interpretation of unmarked quantities depends on the `fields`. For example `INTERVAL '1' YEAR` is read as 1 year, whereas `INTERVAL '1'` means 1 second. Also, field values “to the right” of the least significant field allowed by the `fields` specification are silently discarded. For example, writing `INTERVAL '1 day 2:03:04' HOUR TO MINUTE` results in dropping the seconds field, but not the day field.

According to the SQL standard all fields of an interval value must have the same sign, so a leading negative sign applies to all fields; for example the negative sign in the interval literal `'-1 2:03:04'` applies to both the days and hour/minute/second parts. PostgreSQL allows the fields to have different signs, and traditionally treats each field in the textual representation as independently signed, so that the hour/minute/second part is considered positive in this example. If `IntervalStyle` is set to `sql_standard` then a leading sign is considered to apply to all fields (but only if no additional signs appear). Otherwise the traditional PostgreSQL interpretation is used. To avoid ambiguity, it's recommended to attach an explicit sign to each field if any field is negative.

Internally, `interval` values are stored as three integral fields: months, days, and microseconds. These fields are kept separate because the number of days in a month varies, while a day can have 23 or 25 hours if a daylight savings time transition is involved. An interval input string that uses other units is normalized into this format, and then reconstructed in a standardized way for output, for example:

    SELECT '2 years 15 months 100 weeks 99 hours 123456789 milliseconds'::interval;
                   interval
    ---------------------------------------
     3 years 3 mons 700 days 133:17:36.789

Here weeks, which are understood as “7 days”, have been kept separate, while the smaller and larger time units were combined and normalized.

Input field values can have fractional parts, for example `'1.5 weeks'` or `'01:02:03.45'`. However, because `interval` internally stores only integral fields, fractional values must be converted into smaller units. Fractional parts of units greater than months are rounded to be an integer number of months, e.g. `'1.5 years'` becomes `'1 year 6 mons'`. Fractional parts of weeks and days are computed to be an integer number of days and microseconds, assuming 30 days per month and 24 hours per day, e.g., `'1.75 months'` becomes `1 mon 22 days 12:00:00`. Only seconds will ever be shown as fractional on output.

Table 8.17 shows some examples of valid `interval` input.

Table 8.17. Interval Input

Example | Description
--- | ---
`1-2` | SQL standard format: 1 year 2 months
`3 4:05:06` | SQL standard format: 3 days 4 hours 5 minutes 6 seconds
`1 year 2 months 3 days 4 hours 5 minutes 6 seconds` | Traditional Postgres format: 1 year 2 months 3 days 4 hours 5 minutes 6 seconds
`P1Y2M3DT4H5M6S` | ISO 8601 “format with designators”: same meaning as above
`P0001-02-03T04:05:06` | ISO 8601 “alternative format”: same meaning as above

### 8.5.5. Interval Output #

As previously explained, PostgreSQL stores `interval` values as months, days, and microseconds. For output, the months field is converted to years and months by dividing by 12. The days field is shown as-is. The microseconds field is converted to hours, minutes, seconds, and fractional seconds. Thus months, minutes, and seconds will never be shown as exceeding the ranges 0–11, 0–59, and 0–59 respectively, while the displayed years, days, and hours fields can be quite large. (The `justify_days` and `justify_hours` functions can be used if it is desirable to transpose large days or hours values into the next higher field.)

The output format of the interval type can be set to one of the four styles `sql_standard`, `postgres`, `postgres_verbose`, or `iso_8601`, using the command `SET intervalstyle`. The default is the `postgres` format. Table 8.18 shows examples of each output style.

The `sql_standard` style produces output that conforms to the SQL standard's specification for interval literal strings, if the interval value meets the standard's restrictions (either year-month only or day-time only, with no mixing of positive and negative components). Otherwise the output looks like a standard year-month literal string followed by a day-time literal string, with explicit signs added to disambiguate mixed-sign intervals.

The output of the `postgres` style matches the output of PostgreSQL releases prior to 8.4 when the DateStyle parameter was set to `ISO`.

The output of the `postgres_verbose` style matches the output of PostgreSQL releases prior to 8.4 when the `DateStyle` parameter was set to non-`ISO` output.

The output of the `iso_8601` style matches the “format with designators” described in section 4.4.3.2 of the ISO 8601 standard.

Table 8.18. Interval Output Style Examples

Style Specification | Year-Month Interval | Day-Time Interval | Mixed Interval
--- | --- | --- | ---
`sql_standard` | 1-2 | 3 4:05:06 | -1-2 +3 -4:05:06
`postgres` | 1 year 2 mons | 3 days 04:05:06 | -1 year -2 mons +3 days -04:05:06
`postgres_verbose` | @ 1 year 2 mons | @ 3 days 4 hours 5 mins 6 secs | @ 1 year 2 mons -3 days 4 hours 5 mins 6 secs ago
`iso_8601` | P1Y2M | P3DT4H5M6S | P-1Y-2M3D​T-4H-5M-6S

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