9.9. Date/Time Functions and Operators
Table 9.30 shows the available functions for date/time value processing, with details appearing in the following subsections.Table 9.29 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 9.29. 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 9.30. 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; iftimezone is not specified, the 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 | ||
| timestamp with time zone | Convert Unix epoch (seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00+00) to timestamp | to_timestamp(1284352323) | 2010-09-13 04:32:03+00 |
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:trueSELECT (DATE '2001-02-16', INTERVAL '100 days') OVERLAPS (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2002-10-30');Result:falseSELECT (DATE '2001-10-29', DATE '2001-10-30') OVERLAPS (DATE '2001-10-30', DATE '2001-10-31');Result:falseSELECT (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, keeping the time of day the same. 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 toAmerica/Denver:
SELECT timestamp with time zone '2005-04-02 12:00:00-07' + interval '1 day';Result:2005-04-03 12:00:00-06SELECT 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.PostgreSQL'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:10537200SELECT (EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamptz '2013-07-01 12:00:00') - EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM timestamptz '2013-03-01 12:00:00')) / 60 / 60 / 24;Result:121.958333333333SELECT timestamptz '2013-07-01 12:00:00' - timestamptz '2013-03-01 12:00:00';Result:121 days 23:00:00SELECT 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(fieldFROMsource)
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:
centuryThe century
SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM TIMESTAMP '2000-12-16 12:21:13');Result:
20SELECT EXTRACT(CENTURY FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:21The 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.
dayFor
timestampvalues, the day (of the month) field (1 - 31) ; forintervalvalues, the number of daysSELECT EXTRACT(DAY FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
16SELECT EXTRACT(DAY FROM INTERVAL '40 days 1 minute');Result:40decadeThe year field divided by 10
SELECT EXTRACT(DECADE FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
200dowThe day of the week as Sunday (
0) to Saturday (6)SELECT EXTRACT(DOW FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
5Note that
extract's day of the week numbering differs from that of theto_char(..., 'D')function.doyThe day of the year (1 - 365/366)
SELECT EXTRACT(DOY FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
47epochFor
timestamp with time zonevalues, the number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (negative for timestamps before that); fordateandtimestampvalues, the nominal number of seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00, without regard to timezone or daylight-savings rules; forintervalvalues, the total number of seconds in the intervalSELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40.12-08');Result:
982384720.12SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40.12');Result:982355920.12SELECT EXTRACT(EPOCH FROM INTERVAL '5 days 3 hours');Result:442800You can convert an epoch value back to a
timestamp with time zonewithto_timestamp:SELECT to_timestamp(982384720.12);Result:
2001-02-17 04:38:40.12+00Beware that applying
to_timestampto an epoch extracted from adateortimestampvalue 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.hourThe hour field (0 - 23)
SELECT EXTRACT(HOUR FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
20isodowThe day of the week as Monday (
1) to Sunday (7)SELECT EXTRACT(ISODOW FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-18 20:38:40');Result:
7This is identical to
dowexcept for Sunday. This matches theISO 8601 day of the week numbering.isoyearTheISO 8601 week-numbering year that the date falls in (not applicable to intervals)
SELECT EXTRACT(ISOYEAR FROM DATE '2006-01-01');Result:
2005SELECT EXTRACT(ISOYEAR FROM DATE '2006-01-02');Result:2006EachISO 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
weekfield for more information.This field is not available in PostgreSQL releases prior to 8.3.
julianTheJulian Date corresponding to the date or timestamp (not applicable to intervals). 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:
2453737SELECT EXTRACT(JULIAN FROM TIMESTAMP '2006-01-01 12:00');Result:2453737.5microsecondsThe 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:
28500000millenniumThe millennium
SELECT EXTRACT(MILLENNIUM FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
3Years in the 1900s are in the second millennium. The third millennium started January 1, 2001.
millisecondsThe seconds field, including fractional parts, multiplied by 1000. Note that this includes full seconds.
SELECT EXTRACT(MILLISECONDS FROM TIME '17:12:28.5');Result:
28500minuteThe minutes field (0 - 59)
SELECT EXTRACT(MINUTE FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
38monthFor
timestampvalues, the number of the month within the year (1 - 12) ; forintervalvalues, the number of months, modulo 12 (0 - 11)SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
2SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM INTERVAL '2 years 3 months');Result:3SELECT EXTRACT(MONTH FROM INTERVAL '2 years 13 months');Result:1quarterThe quarter of the year (1 - 4) that the date is in
SELECT EXTRACT(QUARTER FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
1secondThe seconds field, including fractional parts (0 - 59[7])
SELECT EXTRACT(SECOND FROM TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:
40SELECT EXTRACT(SECOND FROM TIME '17:12:28.5');Result:28.5timezoneThe 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,PostgreSQL does not use UTC because leap seconds are not handled.)
timezone_hourThe hour component of the time zone offset
timezone_minuteThe minute component of the time zone offset
week
Note
When the input value is +/-Infinity,extract returns +/-Infinity for monotonically-increasing fields (epoch,julian,year,isoyear,decade,century, andmillennium). 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.SELECT date_part('day', TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:16SELECT 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 20:00:00SELECT date_trunc('year', TIMESTAMP '2001-02-16 20:38:40');Result:2001-01-01 00:00:009.9.3. AT TIME ZONE
TheAT TIME ZONE converts time stampwithout time zone to/from time stampwith time zone, andtime values to different time zones.Table 9.31 shows its variants.
Table 9.31. 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 19:38:40-08SELECT TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE '2001-02-16 20:38:40-05' AT TIME ZONE 'America/Denver';Result:2001-02-16 18:38:40SELECT 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
PostgreSQL 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:14:39:53.662522-05SELECT CURRENT_DATE;Result:2001-12-23SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP;Result:2001-12-23 14:39:53.662522-05SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(2);Result:2001-12-23 14:39:53.66-05SELECT 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.
PostgreSQL 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 historicalPostgreSQL function. Likeclock_timestamp(), it returns the actual current time, but as a formattedtext string rather than atimestamp with time zone value.now() is a traditionalPostgreSQL 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.)
9.9.5. 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.