INTERVAL data type

Informix®

Informix provides the INTERVAL data type to store a value that represents a span of time.

INTERVAL types are divided into two classes:

Intervals of year-month class such as INTERVAL YEAR(5) TO MONTH
Intervals of day-time class such as INTERVAL DAY(9) TO SECOND

INTERVAL columns can be defined with various time units, by specifying a start and end qualifier. For example, you can define an interval to store a number of hours and minutes with INTERVAL HOUR(n) TO MINUTE, where n defines the maximum number of digits for the hours unit.

The values of Informix INTERVAL can be represented with a character string literal, or as INTERVAL() literals:

'-9834 15:45:12.345'  -- an INTERVAL DAY(6) TO FRACTION(3)
'7623-11'   -- an INTERVAL YEAR(9) TO MONTH
INTERVAL(18734:45) HOUR(5) TO MINUTE
INTERVAL(-7634-11) YEAR(5) TO MONTH

PostgreSQL

PostgreSQL provides an INTERVAL data type which is equivalent to the Informix INTERVAL:

It is possible to specify the interval class / precision with YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE and SECOND[(p)] fields.
Fractional part of seconds can be defined with up to 6 digits.
The interval value range is from -178000000 to +178000000 years.
Input and output format can be controlled with the SET interval style command.

Unlike Informix INTERVAL, the PostgreSQL INTERVAL type can be used without any qualifiers when defining table columns. The qualifiers are mostly specified as an indicator, but are not strick interval type specification as in Informix:

test1=> create table mytable ( i interval hour to minute );
CREATE TABLE
test1=> insert into mytable values ( interval '9999-10 555 11:22:33' );
INSERT 0 1
test1=> select * from mytable;
                  i                   
--------------------------------------
 9999 years 10 mons 555 days 11:22:00
(1 row)

When selecting directly columns defined with interval qualifiers, PostgreSQL provides detail type information. However, when using aggregate SQL functions such as SUM() on interval columns, the resulting type will be a simple INTERVAL type without details:

create table tab1 ( pkey int, dur interval hour to minute);
\d tab1

insert into tab1 values ( 101, interval '999:12');
insert into tab1 values ( 102, interval '100:00');

create view v1 as select sum(dur) from tab1;
select * from v1;
\d v1

create view v2 as select cast(sum(dur) as interval hour to minute) from tab1;
select * from v2;
\d v2

drop view v1;
drop view v2;
drop table tab1;

With the above SQL code, the \d v1 command which is describing the column types of view v1, will show the "interval" type name, without further type info.

Solution

Use the following conversion rules to map Informix numeric types to PostgreSQL numeric types:

Table 1. Informix data types and PostgreSQL equivalents
Informix data type	PostgreSQL data type
`INTERVAL YEAR[(p)] TO MONTH`	`INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH`
`INTERVAL YEAR[(p)] TO YEAR`	`INTERVAL YEAR`
`INTERVAL MONTH[(p)] TO MONTH`	`INTERVAL MONTH`
`INTERVAL DAY[(p)] TO FRACTION(n)`	`INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND(n)`
`INTERVAL DAY[(p)] TO SECOND`	`INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND(0)`
`INTERVAL DAY[(p)] TO MINUTE`	`INTERVAL DAY TO MINUTE`
`INTERVAL DAY[(p)] TO HOUR`	`INTERVAL DAY TO HOUR`
`INTERVAL DAY[(p)] TO DAY`	`INTERVAL DAY`
`INTERVAL HOUR[(p)] TO FRACTION(n)`	`INTERVAL HOUR TO SECOND(n)`
`INTERVAL HOUR[(p)] TO SECOND`	`INTERVAL HOUR TO SECOND(0)`
`INTERVAL HOUR[(p)] TO MINUTE`	`INTERVAL HOUR TO MINUTE`
`INTERVAL HOUR[(p)] TO HOUR`	`INTERVAL HOUR`
`INTERVAL MINUTE[(p)] TO FRACTION(n)`	`INTERVAL MINUTE TO SECOND(n)`
`INTERVAL MINUTE[(p)] TO SECOND`	`INTERVAL MINUTE TO SECOND(0)`
`INTERVAL MINUTE[(p)] TO MINUTE`	`INTERVAL MINUTE`
`INTERVAL SECOND[(p)] TO FRACTION(n)`	`INTERVAL SECOND(n)`
`INTERVAL SECOND[(p)] TO SECOND`	`INTERVAL SECOND(0)`
`INTERVAL FRACTION TO FRACTION(n)`	`INTERVAL SECOND(n)`

The PostgreSQL database interface converts the Informix-style INTERVAL type to the native PostgreSQL INTERVAL type.

Important:

The PostgreSQL database driver forces the interval style session parameter to 'iso_8601', this is required to insert and fetch interval database with the libpq CAPI functions. You must not change this setting during program execution.

While PostgreSQL intervals support up to 9 digits for the higher unit like Informix, year values range from -178000000 to +178000000 only. This limitation exists in PostgreSQL 8.4 and may be solved in future versions.

When using aggregate SQL functions such as SUM(), since PostgreSQL does not provide detailed type information, the ODI driver must select a corresponding FGL interval type, which will be INTERVAL YEAR(9) TO MONTH. Fetching such aggregate function result into a variable using a different INTERVAL class will fail. To workaround this problem, use a CAST() operator. This CAST() expression can be used in static SQL, as long as the INTERVAL type specification matches an Informix type:

SELECT CAST( SUM(duration) AS INTERVAL HOUR TO MINUTE )
   INTO total_duration
   FROM process

The INTERVAL types translation can be controlled with the following FGLPROFILE entry:

dbi.database.dsname.ifxemul.datatype.interval = { true | false }

For more details see IBM Informix emulation parameters in FGLPROFILE.