Thanks very much for both of your replies. I had tried something similar and
gotten an error, so I am probably making a stupid mistake. If I try this,
it works:
SELECT ('09.03.2014'||' '||lpad('3:00:00',8,'0'),'DD.MM.YYYY
HH24:MI:SS')::timestamp
but if I use column names instead of the text, like this, it fails:
SELECT (gmt_date||' '||lpad(gmt_time),'DD.MM.YYYY HH24:MI:SS')::timestamp
...
Both the gmt_date and gmt_time columns are "text" data type and formatted
exactly as in the original example, but I get this error:
ERROR: cannot cast type record to timestamp without time zone
Um, both fail for the same reason. You added ", 'DD.MM.YYYY HH24:MI:ss'" to the parenthesized _expression_ which turns it into an adhoc record type instead of simply performing grouping. Basically you wrote: ROW(literal, literal)::timestamp.
You cannot pass arguments here, which is what your format _expression_ is. But the casting mechanism understands most comment formats are will try them until it fails, runs out of possibilities, or succeeds.
David J.
