9.9. Date/Time Functions and Operators
Table 9.28 shows the available functions for date/time value processing, with details appearing in the following subsections.Table 9.27 illustrates the behaviors of the basic arithmetic operators (+
,*
, etc.). For formatting functions, refer toSection 9.8. You should be familiar with the background information on date/time data types fromSection 8.5.
All the functions and operators described below that taketime
ortimestamp
inputs actually come in two variants: one that takestime with time zone
ortimestamp with time zone
, and one that takestime without time zone
ortimestamp without time zone
. For brevity, these variants are not shown separately. Also, the+
and*
operators come in commutative pairs (for example both date + integer and integer + date); we show only one of each such pair.
Table 9.27. Date/Time Operators
Operator | Example | Result |
---|---|---|
+ | date '2001-09-28' + integer '7' | date '2001-10-05' |
+ | date '2001-09-28' + interval '1 hour' | timestamp '2001-09-28 01:00:00' |
+ | date '2001-09-28' + time '03:00' | timestamp '2001-09-28 03:00:00' |
+ | interval '1 day' + interval '1 hour' | interval '1 day 01:00:00' |
+ | timestamp '2001-09-28 01:00' + interval '23 hours' | timestamp '2001-09-29 00:00:00' |
+ | time '01:00' + interval '3 hours' | time '04:00:00' |
- | - interval '23 hours' | interval '-23:00:00' |
- | date '2001-10-01' - date '2001-09-28' | integer '3' (days) |
- | date '2001-10-01' - integer '7' | date '2001-09-24' |
- | date '2001-09-28' - interval '1 hour' | timestamp '2001-09-27 23:00:00' |
- | time '05:00' - time '03:00' | interval '02:00:00' |
- | time '05:00' - interval '2 hours' | time '03:00:00' |
- | timestamp '2001-09-28 23:00' - interval '23 hours' | timestamp '2001-09-28 00:00:00' |
- | interval '1 day' - interval '1 hour' | interval '1 day -01:00:00' |
- | timestamp '2001-09-29 03:00' - timestamp '2001-09-27 12:00' | interval '1 day 15:00:00' |
* | 900 * interval '1 second' | interval '00:15:00' |
* | 21 * interval '1 day' | interval '21 days' |
* | double precision '3.5' * interval '1 hour' | interval '03:30:00' |
/ | interval '1 hour' / double precision '1.5' | interval '00:40:00' |
Table 9.28. Date/Time Functions
Function | Return Type | Description | Example | Result |
---|---|---|---|---|
| interval | Subtract arguments, producing a“symbolic” result that uses years and months, rather than just days | age(timestamp '2001-04-10', timestamp '1957-06-13') | 43 years 9 mons 27 days |
| interval | Subtract fromcurrent_date (at midnight) | age(timestamp '1957-06-13') | 43 years 8 mons 3 days |
| timestamp with time zone | Current date and time (changes during statement execution); seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| date | Current date; seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| time with time zone | Current time of day; seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| timestamp with time zone | Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| double precision | Get subfield (equivalent toextract ); seeSection 9.9.1 | date_part('hour', timestamp '2001-02-16 20:38:40') | 20 |
| double precision | Get subfield (equivalent toextract ); seeSection 9.9.1 | date_part('month', interval '2 years 3 months') | 3 |
| timestamp | Truncate to specified precision; see alsoSection 9.9.2 | date_trunc('hour', timestamp '2001-02-16 20:38:40') | 2001-02-16 20:00:00 |
| interval | Truncate to specified precision; see alsoSection 9.9.2 | date_trunc('hour', interval '2 days 3 hours 40 minutes') | 2 days 03:00:00 |
| double precision | Get subfield; seeSection 9.9.1 | extract(hour from timestamp '2001-02-16 20:38:40') | 20 |
| double precision | Get subfield; seeSection 9.9.1 | extract(month from interval '2 years 3 months') | 3 |
| boolean | Test for finite date (not +/-infinity) | isfinite(date '2001-02-16') | true |
| boolean | Test for finite time stamp (not +/-infinity) | isfinite(timestamp '2001-02-16 21:28:30') | true |
| boolean | Test for finite interval | isfinite(interval '4 hours') | true |
| interval | Adjust interval so 30-day time periods are represented as months | justify_days(interval '35 days') | 1 mon 5 days |
| interval | Adjust interval so 24-hour time periods are represented as days | justify_hours(interval '27 hours') | 1 day 03:00:00 |
| interval | Adjust interval usingjustify_days andjustify_hours , with additional sign adjustments | justify_interval(interval '1 mon -1 hour') | 29 days 23:00:00 |
| time | Current time of day; seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| timestamp | Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| date | Create date from year, month and day fields | make_date(2013, 7, 15) | 2013-07-15 |
| interval | Create interval from years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds fields | make_interval(days => 10) | 10 days |
| time | Create time from hour, minute and seconds fields | make_time(8, 15, 23.5) | 08:15:23.5 |
| timestamp | Create timestamp from year, month, day, hour, minute and seconds fields | make_timestamp(2013, 7, 15, 8, 15, 23.5) | 2013-07-15 08:15:23.5 |
| timestamp with time zone | Create timestamp with time zone from year, month, day, hour, minute and seconds fields. Whentimezone is not specified, then current time zone is used. | make_timestamptz(2013, 7, 15, 8, 15, 23.5) | 2013-07-15 08:15:23.5+01 |
| timestamp with time zone | Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| timestamp with time zone | Current date and time (start of current statement); seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| text | Current date and time (likeclock_timestamp , but as atext string); seeSection 9.9.4 | ||
| timestamp with time zone | Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.4 |
In addition to these functions, the SQLOVERLAPS
operator is supported:
(start1
,end1
) OVERLAPS (start2
,end2
)(start1
,length1
) OVERLAPS (start2
,length2
)
This expression yields true when two time periods (defined by their endpoints) overlap, false when they do not overlap. The endpoints can be specified as pairs of dates, times, or time stamps; or as a date, time, or time stamp followed by an interval. When a pair of values is provided, either the start or the end can be written first;OVERLAPS
automatically takes the earlier value of the pair as the start. Each time period is considered to represent the half-open intervalstart
<=
time
<
end
, unlessstart
andend
are equal in which case it represents that single time instant. This means for instance that two time periods with only an endpoint in common do not overlap.
SELECT (DATE '2001-02-16', DATE '2001-12-21') OVERLAPS (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2002-10-30');Result:true
SELECT (DATE '2001-02-16', INTERVAL '100 days') OVERLAPS (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2002-10-30');Result:false
SELECT (DATE '2001-10-29', DATE '2001-10-30') OVERLAPS (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2001-10-31');Result:false
SELECT (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2001-10-30') OVERLAPS (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2001-10-31');Result:true
When adding aninterval
value to (or subtracting aninterval
value from) atimestamp with time zone
value, the days component advances or decrements the date of thetimestamp with time zone
by the indicated number of days. Across daylight saving time changes (when the session time zone is set to a time zone that recognizes DST), this meansinterval '1 day'
does not necessarily equalinterval '24 hours'
. For example, with the session time zone set toCST7CDT
,timestamp with time zone '2005-04-02 12:00-07' + interval '1 day'
will producetimestamp with time zone '2005-04-03 12:00-06'
, while addinginterval '24 hours'
to the same initialtimestamp with time zone
producestimestamp with time zone '2005-04-03 13:00-06'
, as there is a change in daylight saving time at2005-04-03 02:00
in time zoneCST7CDT
.
Note there can be ambiguity in themonths
field returned byage
because different months have different numbers of days.Postgres Pro's approach uses the month from the earlier of the two dates when calculating partial months. For example,age('2004-06-01', '2004-04-30')
uses April to yield1 mon 1 day
, while using May would yield1 mon 2 days
because May has 31 days, while April has only 30.
Subtraction of dates and timestamps can also be complex. One conceptually simple way to perform subtraction is to convert each value to a number of seconds usingEXTRACT(EPOCH FROM ...)
, then subtract the results; this produces the number ofseconds between the two values. This will adjust for the number of days in each month, timezone changes, and daylight saving time adjustments. Subtraction of date or timestamp values with the“-
” operator returns the number of days (24-hours) and hours/minutes/seconds between the values, making the same adjustments. Theage
function returns years, months, days, and hours/minutes/seconds, performing field-by-field subtraction and then adjusting for negative field values. The following queries illustrate the differences in these approaches. The sample results were produced withtimezone = 'US/Eastern'
; there is a daylight saving time change between the two dates used:
SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamptz '2013-07-01 12:00:00') - EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamptz '2013-03-01 12:00:00');Result:10537200
SELECT (EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamptz '2013-07-01 12:00:00') - EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamptz '2013-03-01 12:00:00')) / 60 / 60 / 24;Result:121.958333333333
SELECT timestamptz '2013-07-01 12:00:00' - timestamptz '2013-03-01 12:00:00';Result:121 days 23:00:00
SELECT age(timestamptz '2013-07-01 12:00:00', timestamptz '2013-03-01 12:00:00');Result:4 mons
9.9.1. EXTRACT
,date_part
EXTRACT(field
FROMsource
)
Theextract
function retrieves subfields such as year or hour from date/time values.source
must be a value expression of typetimestamp
,time
, orinterval
. (Expressions of typedate
are cast totimestamp
and can therefore be used as well.)field
is an identifier or string that selects what field to extract from the source value. Theextract
function returns values of typedouble precision
. The following are valid field names:
century
The century
SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM TIMESTAMP '2000-12-16 12:21:13');Result:
20
SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:21
The first century starts at 0001-01-01 00:00:00 AD, although they did not know it at the time. This definition applies to all Gregorian calendar countries. There is no century number 0, you go from -1 century to 1 century. If you disagree with this, please write your complaint to: Pope, Cathedral Saint-Peter of Roma, Vatican.
day
For
timestamp
values, the day (of the month) field (1 - 31) ; forinterval
values, the number of daysSELECT EXTRACT(DAY FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
16
SELECT EXTRACT(DAY FROM INTERVAL '40 days 1 minute');Result:40
decade
The year field divided by 10
SELECT EXTRACT(DECADE FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
200
dow
The day of the week as Sunday (
0
) to Saturday (6
)SELECT EXTRACT(DOW FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
5
Note that
extract
's day of the week numbering differs from that of theto_char(..., 'D')
function.doy
The day of the year (1 - 365/366)
SELECT EXTRACT(DOY FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
47
epoch
For
timestamp with time zone
values, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (can be negative); fordate
andtimestamp
values, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 local time; forinterval
values, the total number of seconds in the intervalSELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40.12-08');Result:
982384720.12
SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM INTERVAL '5 days 3 hours');Result:442800
Here is how you can convert an epoch value back to a time stamp:
SELECT TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE 'epoch' + 982384720.12 * INTERVAL '1 second';
(The
to_timestamp
function encapsulates the above conversion.)hour
The hour field (0 - 23)
SELECT EXTRACT(HOUR FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
20
isodow
The day of the week as Monday (
1
) to Sunday (7
)SELECT EXTRACT(ISODOW FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-18 20:38:40');Result:
7
This is identical to
dow
except for Sunday. This matches theISO 8601 day of the week numbering.isoyear
TheISO 8601 week-numbering year that the date falls in (not applicable to intervals)
SELECT EXTRACT(ISOYEAR FROM DATE '2006-01-01');Result:
2005
SELECT EXTRACT(ISOYEAR FROM DATE '2006-01-02');Result:2006
EachISO 8601 week-numbering year begins with the Monday of the week containing the 4th of January, so in early January or late December theISO year may be different from the Gregorian year. See the
week
field for more information.This field is not available in PostgreSQL releases prior to 8.3.
microseconds
The seconds field, including fractional parts, multiplied by 1 000 000; note that this includes full seconds
SELECT EXTRACT(MICROSECONDS FROM TIME '17:12:28.5');Result:
28500000
millennium
The millennium
SELECT EXTRACT(MILLENNIUM FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
3
Years in the 1900s are in the second millennium. The third millennium started January 1, 2001.
milliseconds
The seconds field, including fractional parts, multiplied by 1000. Note that this includes full seconds.
SELECT EXTRACT(MILLISECONDS FROM TIME '17:12:28.5');Result:
28500
minute
The minutes field (0 - 59)
SELECT EXTRACT(MINUTE FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
38
month
For
timestamp
values, the number of the month within the year (1 - 12) ; forinterval
values, the number of months, modulo 12 (0 - 11)SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
2
SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM INTERVAL '2 years 3 months');Result:3
SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM INTERVAL '2 years 13 months');Result:1
quarter
The quarter of the year (1 - 4) that the date is in
SELECT EXTRACT(QUARTER FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
1
second
The seconds field, including fractional parts (0 - 59[7])
SELECT EXTRACT(SECOND FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
40
SELECT EXTRACT(SECOND FROM TIME '17:12:28.5');Result:28.5
timezone
The time zone offset from UTC, measured in seconds. Positive values correspond to time zones east of UTC, negative values to zones west of UTC. (Technically,Postgres Pro usesUT1 because leap seconds are not handled.)
timezone_hour
The hour component of the time zone offset
timezone_minute
The minute component of the time zone offset
week
Theextract
function is primarily intended for computational processing. For formatting date/time values for display, seeSection 9.8.
The Note that here thedate_part
function is modeled on the traditionalIngres equivalent to theSQL-standard functionextract
:date_part('
field
',source
)field
parameter needs to be a string value, not a name. The valid field names fordate_part
are the same as forextract
.SELECT date_part('day', TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
16
SELECT date_part('hour', INTERVAL '4 hours 3 minutes');Result:4
9.9.2. date_trunc
The functiondate_trunc
is conceptually similar to thetrunc
function for numbers.
date_trunc('field
',source
)
source
is a value expression of typetimestamp
orinterval
. (Values of typedate
andtime
are cast automatically totimestamp
orinterval
, respectively.)field
selects to which precision to truncate the input value. The return value is of typetimestamp
orinterval
with all fields that are less significant than the selected one set to zero (or one, for day and month).
Valid values forfield
are:
microseconds |
milliseconds |
second |
minute |
hour |
day |
week |
month |
quarter |
year |
decade |
century |
millennium |
Examples:
SELECT date_trunc('hour', TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:2001-02-16 20:00:00
SELECT date_trunc('year', TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:2001-01-01 00:00:00
9.9.3. AT TIME ZONE
TheAT TIME ZONE
converts time stampwithout time zone to/from time stampwith time zone, andtime values to different time zones.Table 9.29 shows its variants.
Table 9.29. AT TIME ZONE
Variants
Expression | Return Type | Description |
---|---|---|
| timestamp with time zone | Treat given time stampwithout time zone as located in the specified time zone |
| timestamp without time zone | Convert given time stampwith time zone to the new time zone, with no time zone designation |
| time with time zone | Convert given timewith time zone to the new time zone |
In these expressions, the desired time zonezone
can be specified either as a text string (e.g.,'America/Los_Angeles'
) or as an interval (e.g.,INTERVAL '-08:00'
). In the text case, a time zone name can be specified in any of the ways described inSection 8.5.3.
Examples (assuming the local time zone isAmerica/Los_Angeles
):
SELECT TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40' AT TIME ZONE 'America/Denver';Result:2001-02-16 19:38:40-08
SELECT TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40-05' AT TIME ZONE 'America/Denver';Result:2001-02-16 18:38:40
SELECT TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40-05' AT TIME ZONE 'Asia/Tokyo' AT TIME ZONE 'America/Chicago';Result:2001-02-16 05:38:40
The first example adds a time zone to a value that lacks it, and displays the value using the currentTimeZone
setting. The second example shifts the time stamp with time zone value to the specified time zone, and returns the value without a time zone. This allows storage and display of values different from the currentTimeZone
setting. The third example converts Tokyo time to Chicago time. Convertingtime values to other time zones uses the currently active time zone rules since no date is supplied.
The function
is equivalent to the SQL-conforming constructtimezone
(zone
,timestamp
)
.timestamp
AT TIME ZONEzone
9.9.4. Current Date/Time
Postgres Pro provides a number of functions that return values related to the current date and time. These SQL-standard functions all return values based on the start time of the current transaction:
CURRENT_DATECURRENT_TIMECURRENT_TIMESTAMPCURRENT_TIME(precision
)CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(precision
)LOCALTIMELOCALTIMESTAMPLOCALTIME(precision
)LOCALTIMESTAMP(precision
)
CURRENT_TIME
andCURRENT_TIMESTAMP
deliver values with time zone;LOCALTIME
andLOCALTIMESTAMP
deliver values without time zone.
CURRENT_TIME
,CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
,LOCALTIME
, andLOCALTIMESTAMP
can optionally take a precision parameter, which causes the result to be rounded to that many fractional digits in the seconds field. Without a precision parameter, the result is given to the full available precision.
Some examples:
SELECT CURRENT_TIME;Result:14:39:53.662522-05
SELECT CURRENT_DATE;Result:2001-12-23
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;Result:2001-12-23 14:39:53.662522-05
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(2);Result:2001-12-23 14:39:53.66-05
SELECT LOCALTIMESTAMP;Result:2001-12-23 14:39:53.662522
Since these functions return the start time of the current transaction, their values do not change during the transaction. This is considered a feature: the intent is to allow a single transaction to have a consistent notion of the“current” time, so that multiple modifications within the same transaction bear the same time stamp.
Note
Other database systems might advance these values more frequently.
Postgres Pro also provides functions that return the start time of the current statement, as well as the actual current time at the instant the function is called. The complete list of non-SQL-standard time functions is:
transaction_timestamp()statement_timestamp()clock_timestamp()timeofday()now()
transaction_timestamp()
is equivalent toCURRENT_TIMESTAMP
, but is named to clearly reflect what it returns.statement_timestamp()
returns the start time of the current statement (more specifically, the time of receipt of the latest command message from the client).statement_timestamp()
andtransaction_timestamp()
return the same value during the first command of a transaction, but might differ during subsequent commands.clock_timestamp()
returns the actual current time, and therefore its value changes even within a single SQL command.timeofday()
is a historicalPostgres Pro function. Likeclock_timestamp()
, it returns the actual current time, but as a formattedtext
string rather than atimestamp with time zone
value.now()
is a traditionalPostgres Pro equivalent totransaction_timestamp()
.
All the date/time data types also accept the special literal valuenow
to specify the current date and time (again, interpreted as the transaction start time). Thus, the following three all return the same result:
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;SELECT now();SELECT TIMESTAMP 'now'; -- incorrect for use with DEFAULT
Tip
You do not want to use the third form when specifying aDEFAULT
clause while creating a table. The system will convertnow
to atimestamp
as soon as the constant is parsed, so that when the default value is needed, the time of the table creation would be used! The first two forms will not be evaluated until the default value is used, because they are function calls. Thus they will give the desired behavior of defaulting to the time of row insertion.
9.9.5. Delaying Execution
The following functions are available to delay execution of the server process:
pg_sleep(seconds
)pg_sleep_for(interval
)pg_sleep_until(timestamp with time zone
)
pg_sleep
makes the current session's process sleep untilseconds
seconds have elapsed.seconds
is a value of typedouble precision
, so fractional-second delays can be specified.pg_sleep_for
is a convenience function for larger sleep times specified as aninterval
.pg_sleep_until
is a convenience function for when a specific wake-up time is desired. For example:
SELECT pg_sleep(1.5);SELECT pg_sleep_for('5 minutes');SELECT pg_sleep_until('tomorrow 03:00');
Note
The effective resolution of the sleep interval is platform-specific; 0.01 seconds is a common value. The sleep delay will be at least as long as specified. It might be longer depending on factors such as server load. In particular,pg_sleep_until
is not guaranteed to wake up exactly at the specified time, but it will not wake up any earlier.
Warning
Make sure that your session does not hold more locks than necessary when callingpg_sleep
or its variants. Otherwise other sessions might have to wait for your sleeping process, slowing down the entire system.