interval output format available that removes ambiguity ?

[Karsten Hilbert]

I have the need to output intervals (ages in this case).
PostgreSQL takes great care to handle months correctly (eg
take into account varying months lengths). This is only
possible if either end point or start point of an interval are
known. For post processing some of the ambiguity of what
"2 mons" means would be removed if "61 days" was returned.

Is there a way to tell PostgreSQL to return that type of
interval (eg use weeks, days, hours, minutes, seconds, ...
but not months and perhaps not even years [leap years, etc]) ?
to_char(interva l, text) doesn't work as it is applied after
the fact.

Karsten
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[Karsten Hilbert]

Tom,

Just subtract the two timestamps (or dates) instead of using age().
Then you get an interval that has no month component. *That* was what I was looking for. Thanks !
He didn't say that. He said that when the system *must* convert a
month-based interval to days and it has no date reference for it,
it uses 30 days. Something like "now() + '1 month'::interva l"
will do the "right thing". This IMHO is the main application of
intervals with month components ...

I knew PostgreSQL would do the Right Thing(tm) where possible
and assume reasonable defaults where ambiguity exists. I just
didn't know how to tell it to return the right version of the
Right Thing.

As usual, sage advice.

Karsten
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