family functions. Contain:

  conversion from a datetype to formatted text:

	to_char( datetime, 	text)
	to_char( timestamp,	text)
	to_char( int4,		text)
	to_char( int8,		text)
	to_char( float4,	text)
	to_char( float8,	text)
	to_char( numeric,	text)

  vice versa:

	to_date		( text, text)
	to_datetime	( text, text)
	to_timestamp	( text, text)
	to_number	( text, text)	   (convert to numeric)


  PostgreSQL to_char is very compatible with Oracle's to_char(), but not
total exactly (now). Small differentions are in number formating. It will
fix in next to_char() version.


! If will this patch aplly to the main tree, must be delete the current
  to_char version in contrib (directory "dateformat" and note in contrib's
  README), this patch not erase it (sorry Bruce).



The patch patching files:

	doc/src/sgml/func.sgml
                     ^^^^^^^^
   Hmm, I'm not sure if my English... :( Check it anyone (volunteer)?

   Thomas, it is right? SGML is not my primary lang  and compile
   the current PG docs tree is very happy job (hard variables setting in
   docs/sgml/Makefile --> HSTYLE= /home/users/t/thomas/....  :-)

   What add any definition to global configure.in and set Makefiles in docs
   tree via ./configure?

	src/backend/utils/adt/Makefile
	src/backend/utils/adt/formatting.c
	src/include/catalog/pg_proc.h
	src/include/utils/formatting.h
Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>              http://home.zf.jcu.cz/~zakkr/

TO_DATE()
and PgSQL extension FROM_CHAR().

TO_CHAR() routine allow formating text output with a datetime values:

        SELECT TO_CHAR('now'::datetime, '"Now is: "HH24:MI:SS');
        to_char
        ----------------
        Now is: 21:04:10

FROM_CHAR() routine allow convert text to a datetime:

        SELECT FROM_CHAR('September 1999 10:20:30', 'FMMonth YYYY
HH:MI:SS');
        from_char
        -----------------------------
        Wed Sep 01 10:20:30 1999 CEST

TO_DATE() is equal with FROM_CHAR(), but output a Date only:

        SELECT TO_DATE('September 1999 10:20:30', 'FMMonth YYYY
HH:MI:SS');
        to_date
        ----------
        09-01-1999


In attache is compressed dir for the contrib. All is prepared, but I'am
not
sure if Makefile is good (probably yes).

Comments & suggestions ?


Thomas, thank you for your good advices.

                                                        Karel


------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Karel Zak <zakkr@zf.jcu.cz>
http://home.zf.jcu.cz/~zakkr/

From: Massimo Dal Zotto <dz@cs.unitn.it>

Here is a tar file the new directories, which substitute the old ones
in contrib. Please remove the old directories array, datetime, miscutil,
string and userlock before unpacking the tar file in contrib.

Note that as the modules are now installed in lib/modules I install all
my sql code in lib/sql. In my opinion also the other contributors should
follow these rules.

    test isn't that complete up to now,  but  I  think  it  shows
    enough of the capabilities of the module.

    The  Makefile  assumes  it  is  located  in a directory under
    pgsql/src/pl.   Since   it   includes   Makefile.global   and
    Makefile.port  and doesn't use any own compiler/linker calls,
    it should build on most of our supported  platforms  (I  only
    tested  under Linux up to now).  It requires flex and bison I
    think. Maybe we should ship prepared gram.c etc. like for the
    main parser too?


Jan

From: Garrett Wollman <wollman@khavrinen.lcs.mit.edu>

Here is some more contrib-fodder, based on TIH's IP address type,
for ISBN and ISSN identifiers (which I just happened to need to keep
track of the things in my library).

  I do not know about these contributions well as I only made the binaries
to contribute to a Japanese Linux package.(I did not test them.)  But I
try to make some brief introduction about the contrib directory with my
poor English.  Here is a draft of README about contrib directory: