9.9. Date/Time Functions and Operators#
Table 9.33 shows the available functions for date/time value processing, with details appearing in the following subsections.Table 9.32 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.
In addition, the usual comparison operators shown inTable 9.1 are available for the date/time types. Dates and timestamps (with or without time zone) are all comparable, while times (with or without time zone) and intervals can only be compared to other values of the same data type. When comparing a timestamp without time zone to a timestamp with time zone, the former value is assumed to be given in the time zone specified by theTimeZone configuration parameter, and is rotated to UTC for comparison to the latter value (which is already in UTC internally). Similarly, a date value is assumed to represent midnight in theTimeZone
zone when comparing it to a timestamp.
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 bothdate
+
integer
andinteger
+
date
); we show only one of each such pair.
Table 9.32. Date/Time Operators
Operator Description Example(s) |
---|
Add a number of days to a date
|
Add an interval to a date
|
Add a time-of-day to a date
|
Add intervals
|
Add an interval to a timestamp
|
Add an interval to a time
|
Negate an interval
|
Subtract dates, producing the number of days elapsed
|
Subtract a number of days from a date
|
Subtract an interval from a date
|
Subtract times
|
Subtract an interval from a time
|
Subtract an interval from a timestamp
|
Subtract intervals
|
Subtract timestamps (converting 24-hour intervals into days, similarly to
|
Multiply an interval by a scalar
|
Divide an interval by a scalar
|
Table 9.33. Date/Time Functions
Function Description Example(s) |
---|
Subtract arguments, producing a“symbolic” result that uses years and months, rather than just days
|
Subtract argument from
|
Current date and time (changes during statement execution); seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current time of day; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current time of day, with limited precision; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date and time (start of current transaction), with limited precision; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Add an
|
Bin input into specified interval aligned with specified origin; seeSection 9.9.3
|
Get timestamp subfield (equivalent to
|
Get interval subfield (equivalent to
|
Subtract an
|
Truncate to specified precision; seeSection 9.9.2
|
Truncate to specified precision in the specified time zone; seeSection 9.9.2
|
Truncate to specified precision; seeSection 9.9.2
|
Get timestamp subfield; seeSection 9.9.1
|
Get interval subfield; seeSection 9.9.1
|
Test for finite date (not +/-infinity)
|
Test for finite timestamp (not +/-infinity)
|
Test for finite interval (not +/-infinity)
|
Adjust interval, converting 30-day time periods to months
|
Adjust interval, converting 24-hour time periods to days
|
Adjust interval using
|
Current time of day; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current time of day, with limited precision; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date and time (start of current transaction), with limited precision; seeSection 9.9.5
|
Create date from year, month and day fields (negative years signify BC)
|
Create interval from years, months, weeks, days, hours, minutes and seconds fields, each of which can default to zero
|
Create time from hour, minute and seconds fields
|
Create timestamp from year, month, day, hour, minute and seconds fields (negative years signify BC)
|
Create timestamp with time zone from year, month, day, hour, minute and seconds fields (negative years signify BC). If
|
Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date and time (start of current statement); seeSection 9.9.5
|
Current date and time (like
|
Current date and time (start of current transaction); seeSection 9.9.5
|
Convert Unix epoch (seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00+00) to timestamp with time zone
|
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
ortimestamp with time zone
value, the months, days, and microseconds fields of theinterval
value are handled in turn. First, a nonzero months field advances or decrements the date of the timestamp by the indicated number of months, keeping the day of month the same unless it would be past the end of the new month, in which case the last day of that month is used. (For example, March 31 plus 1 month becomes April 30, but March 31 plus 2 months becomes May 31.) Then the days field advances or decrements the date of the timestamp by the indicated number of days. In both these steps the local time of day is kept the same. Finally, if there is a nonzero microseconds field, it is added or subtracted literally. When doing arithmetic on atimestamp with time zone
value in a time zone that recognizes DST, this means that adding or subtracting (say)interval '1 day'
does not necessarily have the same result as adding or subtractinginterval '24 hours'
. For example, with the session time zone set toAmerica/Denver
:
SELECT timestamp with time zone '2005-04-02 12:00:00-07' + interval '1 day';Result:2005-04-03 12:00:00-06
SELECT timestamp with time zone '2005-04-02 12:00:00-07' + interval '24 hours';Result:2005-04-03 13:00:00-06
This happens because an hour was skipped due to a change in daylight saving time at2005-04-03 02:00:00
in time zoneAmerica/Denver
.
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:10537200.000000
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:121.9583333333333333
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
,date
,time
, orinterval
. (Timestamps and times can be with or without time zone.)field
is an identifier or string that selects what field to extract from the source value. Not all fields are valid for every input data type; for example, fields smaller than a day cannot be extracted from adate
, while fields of a day or more cannot be extracted from atime
. Theextract
function returns values of typenumeric
.
The following are valid field names:
century
The century; for
interval
values, the year field divided by 100SELECT 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
SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM DATE '0001-01-01 AD');Result:1
SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM DATE '0001-12-31 BC');Result:-1
SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM INTERVAL '2001 years');Result:20
day
The day of the month (1–31); for
interval
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 (negative for timestamps before that); fordate
andtimestamp
values, the nominal number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00, without regard to timezone or daylight-savings rules; 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:
982384720.120000
SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40.12');Result:982355920.120000
SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM INTERVAL '5 days 3 hours');Result:442800.000000
You can convert an epoch value back to a
timestamp with time zone
withto_timestamp
:SELECT to_timestamp(982384720.12);Result:
2001-02-17 04:38:40.12+00
Beware that applying
to_timestamp
to an epoch extracted from adate
ortimestamp
value could produce a misleading result: the result will effectively assume that the original value had been given in UTC, which might not be the case.hour
The hour field (0–23 in timestamps, unrestricted in intervals)
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
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.julian
TheJulian Date corresponding to the date or timestamp. Timestamps that are not local midnight result in a fractional value. SeeSection B.7 for more information.
SELECT EXTRACT(JULIAN FROM DATE '2006-01-01');Result:
2453737
SELECT EXTRACT(JULIAN FROM TIMESTAMP '2006-01-01 12:00');Result:2453737.50000000000000000000
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; for
interval
values, the year field divided by 1000SELECT EXTRACT(MILLENNIUM FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
3
SELECT EXTRACT(MILLENNIUM FROM INTERVAL '2001 years');Result:2
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:
28500.000
minute
The minutes field (0–59)
SELECT EXTRACT(MINUTE FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
38
month
The number of the month within the year (1–12); for
interval
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 any fractional seconds
SELECT EXTRACT(SECOND FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
40.000000
SELECT EXTRACT(SECOND FROM TIME '17:12:28.5');Result:28.500000
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 does not use UTC 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
When processing aninterval
value, theextract
function produces field values that match the interpretation used by the interval output function. This can produce surprising results if one starts with a non-normalized interval representation, for example:
SELECT INTERVAL '80 minutes';Result:01:20:00
SELECT EXTRACT(MINUTES FROM INTERVAL '80 minutes');Result:20
Note
When the input value is +/-Infinity,extract
returns +/-Infinity for monotonically-increasing fields (epoch
,julian
,year
,isoyear
,decade
,century
, andmillennium
fortimestamp
inputs;epoch
,hour
,day
,year
,decade
,century
, andmillennium
forinterval
inputs). For other fields, NULL is returned.PostgreSQL versions before 9.6 returned zero for all cases of infinite input.
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
. For historical reasons, thedate_part
function returns values of typedouble precision
. This can result in a loss of precision in certain uses. Usingextract
is recommended instead.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
[,time_zone
])
source
is a value expression of typetimestamp
,timestamp with time zone
, 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 likewise of typetimestamp
,timestamp with time zone
, orinterval
, and it has 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 |
When the input value is of typetimestamp with time zone
, the truncation is performed with respect to a particular time zone; for example, truncation today
produces a value that is midnight in that zone. By default, truncation is done with respect to the currentTimeZone setting, but the optionaltime_zone
argument can be provided to specify a different time zone. The time zone name can be specified in any of the ways described inSection 8.5.3.
A time zone cannot be specified when processingtimestamp without time zone
orinterval
inputs. These are always taken at face value.
Examples (assuming the local time zone isAmerica/New_York
):
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
SELECT date_trunc('day', TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40+00');Result:2001-02-16 00:00:00-05
SELECT date_trunc('day', TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40+00', 'Australia/Sydney');Result:2001-02-16 08:00:00-05
SELECT date_trunc('hour', INTERVAL '3 days 02:47:33');Result:3 days 02:00:00
9.9.3. date_bin
#
The functiondate_bin
“bins” the input timestamp into the specified interval (thestride) aligned with a specified origin.
date_bin(stride
,source
,origin
)
source
is a value expression of typetimestamp
ortimestamp with time zone
. (Values of typedate
are cast automatically totimestamp
.)stride
is a value expression of typeinterval
. The return value is likewise of typetimestamp
ortimestamp with time zone
, and it marks the beginning of the bin into which thesource
is placed.
Examples:
SELECT date_bin('15 minutes', TIMESTAMP '2020-02-11 15:44:17', TIMESTAMP '2001-01-01');Result:2020-02-11 15:30:00
SELECT date_bin('15 minutes', TIMESTAMP '2020-02-11 15:44:17', TIMESTAMP '2001-01-01 00:02:30');Result:2020-02-11 15:32:30
In the case of full units (1 minute, 1 hour, etc.), it gives the same result as the analogousdate_trunc
call, but the difference is thatdate_bin
can truncate to an arbitrary interval.
Thestride
interval must be greater than zero and cannot contain units of month or larger.
9.9.4. AT TIME ZONE and AT LOCAL
#
TheAT TIME ZONE
operator converts time stampwithout time zone to/from time stampwith time zone, andtime with time zone
values to different time zones.Table 9.34 shows its variants.
Table 9.34. AT TIME ZONE
andAT LOCAL
Variants
Operator Description Example(s) |
---|
Converts given time stampwithout time zone to time stampwith time zone, assuming the given value is in the named time zone.
|
Converts given time stampwithout time zone to time stampwith the session's
|
Converts given time stampwith time zone to time stampwithout time zone, as the time would appear in that zone.
|
Converts given time stampwith time zone to time stampwithout time zone, as the time would appear with the session's
|
Converts given timewith time zone to a new time zone. Since no date is supplied, this uses the currently active UTC offset for the named destination zone.
|
Converts given timewith time zone to a new time zone. Since no date is supplied, this uses the currently active UTC offset for the session's Assuming the session's
|
In these expressions, the desired time zonezone
can be specified either as a text value (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. The interval case is only useful for zones that have fixed offsets from UTC, so it is not very common in practice.
The syntaxAT LOCAL
may be used as shorthand forAT TIME ZONE
, wherelocal
local
is the session'sTimeZone
value.
Examples (assuming the currentTimeZone setting 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' AT TIME ZONE 'Asia/Tokyo' AT TIME ZONE 'America/Chicago';Result:2001-02-16 05:38:40
SELECT TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40-05' AT LOCAL;Result:2001-02-16 17:38:40
SELECT TIME WITH TIME ZONE '20:38:40-05' AT LOCAL;Result:17:38:40
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. The fourth example shifts the time stamp with time zone value to the time zone currently specified by theTimeZone
setting and returns the value without a time zone.
The fifth example is a cautionary tale. Due to the fact that there is no date associated with the input value, the conversion is made using the current date of the session. Therefore, this static example may show a wrong result depending on the time of the year it is viewed because'America/Los_Angeles'
observes Daylight Savings Time.
The function
is equivalent to the SQL-conforming constructtimezone
(zone
,timestamp
)
.timestamp
AT TIME ZONEzone
The function
is equivalent to the SQL-conforming constructtimezone
(zone
,time
)
.time
AT TIME ZONEzone
The function
is equivalent to the SQL-conforming constructtimezone
(timestamp
)
.timestamp
AT LOCAL
The function
is equivalent to the SQL-conforming constructtimezone
(time
)
.time
AT LOCAL
9.9.5. 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:2019-12-23
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;Result:2019-12-23 14:39:53.662522-05
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(2);Result:2019-12-23 14:39:53.66-05
SELECT LOCALTIMESTAMP;Result:2019-12-23 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'; -- but see tip below
Tip
Do not use the third form when specifying a value to be evaluated later, for example in aDEFAULT
clause for a table column. 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. (See alsoSection 8.5.1.4.)
9.9.6. Delaying Execution#
The following functions are available to delay execution of the server process:
pg_sleep (double precision
)pg_sleep_for (interval
)pg_sleep_until (timestamp with time zone
)
pg_sleep
makes the current session's process sleep until the given number of seconds have elapsed. Fractional-second delays can be specified.pg_sleep_for
is a convenience function to allow the sleep time to be 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.