On Thu, 2024-02-29 at 13:38 -0800, Guyren Howe wrote:
> what are the misconceptions, or where might I find them for myself?
In addition to what was already said:
> My current understanding:
> * character is fixed-length, blank-padded. Not sure when you’d
> want that, but it seems clear. Is the name just confusing?
I find the semantics confusing:
test=> SELECT 'a'::character(10);
bpchar
════════════
a
(1 row)
Ok, it is 10 characters long.
test=> SELECT length('a'::character(10));
length
════════
1
(1 row)
Or is it?
test=> SELECT 'a'::character(10) || 'b'::character(10);
?column?
══════════
ab
(1 row)
And why is the result not 20 characters long, with spaces between "a" and "b"?
Best avoid "character".
> * timestamptz is just converted to a timestamp in UTC. Folks might
> imagine that it stores the time zone but it doesn’t.
Yes, and I find that lots of people are confused by that.
You could talk about the interaction with the "timezone" parameter, and
that it is not so much a timestamp with time zone, but an "absolute timestamp",
and in combination with "timestamp" a great way to let the database handle
the difficult task of time zone conversion for you.
Yours,
Laurenz Albe
