On 06/27/2005 10:03:06 PM, Karl O. Pinc wrote:

On 06/27/2005 08:34:19 PM, Michael Fuhr wrote:
On Tue, Jun 28, 2005 at 01:54:08AM +0000, Karl O. Pinc wrote:
> On 06/27/2005 06:33:03 PM, Michael Fuhr wrote:
>
> >See timeofday().
>
> That only gives you the time at the start of the transaction,
> so you get no indication of how long anything in the
> transaction takes.

Did you read the documentation or try it?  Perhaps you're thinking
of now(), current_timestamp, and friends, which don't advance during
a transaction; but as the documentation states, "timeofday() returns
the wall-clock time and does advance during transactions."

Very sorry.  I did not read through the complete documentation.

I just ran tests on versions of PostgreSQL going back to 7.2.8 and
in all of them timeofday() advanced during a transaction.

For all your work a documentation patch is appended that
I think is easier to read and might avoid this problem
in the future.  If you don't read all the way through the
current cvs version then you might think, as I did,
that timeofday() is a CURRENT_TIMESTAMP related function.

Sorry, but 3 lines wrap in the patch
in my email client.  :(


Karl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                 -- Robert A. Heinlein


--- func.sgml   2005-06-26 17:05:35.000000000 -0500
+++ func.sgml.new       2005-06-27 21:51:05.301097896 -0500
@@ -5787,15 +5787,6 @@
    </para>

    <para>
- There is also the function <function>timeofday()</function>, which for historical - reasons returns a <type>text</type> string rather than a <type>timestamp</type> value:
-<screen>
-SELECT timeofday();
-<lineannotation>Result: </lineannotation><computeroutput>Sat Feb 17 19:07:32.000126 2001 EST</computeroutput>
-</screen>
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
     It is important to know that
<function>CURRENT_TIMESTAMP</function> and related functions return
     the start time of the current transaction; their values do not
@@ -5803,8 +5794,7 @@
     the intent is to allow a single transaction to have a consistent
     notion of the <quote>current</quote> time, so that multiple
     modifications within the same transaction bear the same
-    time stamp. <function>timeofday()</function>
-    returns the wall-clock time and does advance during transactions.
+    time stamp.
    </para>

    <note>
@@ -5815,6 +5805,18 @@
    </note>

    <para>
+    There is also the function <function>timeofday()</function> which
+    returns the wall-clock time and advances during transactions.  For
+    historical reasons <function>timeofday()</function> returns a
+    <type>text</type> string rather than a <type>timestamp</type>
+    value:
+<screen>
+SELECT timeofday();
+<lineannotation>Result: </lineannotation><computeroutput>Sat Feb 17 19:07:32.000126 2001 EST</computeroutput>
+</screen>
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
     All the date/time data types also accept the special literal value
<literal>now</literal> to specify the current date and time. Thus,
     the following three all return the same result:


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Karl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                 -- Robert A. Heinlein


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