Re: recasting to timestamp from varchar

[Pavel Stehule <pavel.stehule@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello

2013/1/4 Kirk Wythers <kirk.wythers@xxxxxxxxx>

I am trying to re-cast a column as a timestamp>

ALTER TABLE sixty_min ALTER COLUMN time2 TYPE timestamp;

ERROR:  column "time2" cannot be cast to type timestamp without time zone

The column time2 is currently a varchar. I actually do not want to mess with time zones, but it seems that postgres will not let me do this. The actual values in the column time2 look like this:

7/15/08 12:00

Is this possible? 

yes. it is possible
postgres=# create table foo(a timestamp);

CREATE TABLE

postgres=# insert into foo values(now());
INSERT 0 1
postgres=# 

postgres=# alter table foo alter column a type varchar;
ALTER TABLE
postgres=# alter table foo alter column a type timestamp;

ERROR:  column "a" cannot be cast automatically to type timestamp without time zone
HINT:  Specify a USING _expression_ to perform the conversion.
postgres=# alter table foo alter column a type timestamp using a::timestamp;

ALTER TABLE
postgres=# 

Regards

Pavel Stehule