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Date and time

Introduction

YugabyteDB has extensive date and time capabilities. Once understood, the rich functionality allows you to perform very sophisticated calculations and granular time capture.

For date and time data types, see Data types.

The examples use the Retail Analytics sample dataset.

Special values

There are special values that you can reference - YugabyteDB only caters for some, other special values from PostgreSQL are not implemented in YugabyteDB, but some can be recreated if you require them. The following examples demonstrate the YSQL to select special date and time values. First start ysqlsh from the command line.

./bin/ysqlsh

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time, current_timestamp, now();

 current_date |    current_time    |       current_timestamp       |              now
--------------+--------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------
 2019-07-09   | 00:53:13.924407+00 | 2019-07-09 00:53:13.924407+00 | 2019-07-09 00:53:13.924407+00

yugabyte=# SELECT make_timestamptz(1970, 01, 01, 00, 00, 00, 'UTC') as epoch;

         epoch
------------------------
 1970-01-01 00:00:00+00

yugabyte=# SELECT (current_date-1)::timestamp as yesterday,
                  current_date::timestamp as today,
                  (current_date+1)::timestamp as tomorrow;

      yesterday      |        today        |      tomorrow
---------------------+---------------------+---------------------
 2019-07-08 00:00:00 | 2019-07-09 00:00:00 | 2019-07-10 00:00:00

Note

YugabyteDB cannot create the special PostgreSQL values infinity, -infinity, and allballs ('allballs' is a theoretical time of "00:00:00.00 UTC").

Formatting

The previous examples show the default ISO format for dates and timestamps. The following examples show how you can format dates:

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char(current_timestamp, 'DD-MON-YYYY');

   to_char
-------------
 09-JUL-2019

yugabyte=# SELECT to_date(to_char(current_timestamp, 'DD-MON-YYYY'), 'DD-MON-YYYY');

  to_date
------------
 2019-07-09

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char(current_timestamp, 'DD-MON-YYYY HH:MI:SS PM');

         to_char
-------------------------
 09-JUL-2019 01:50:13 AM

The examples use the to_char() function to present the date in a friendly readable format. When represented as a date or time data type, it is displayed using system settings, which is why the date representation of text 09-JUL-2019 appears as 2019-07-09.

Time zones

The default time zone installed with YugabyteDB is UTC (+0). To list the other time zones that are available, enter the following:

yugabyte=# SELECT * FROM pg_timezone_names;

               name               | abbrev | utc_offset | is_dst
----------------------------------+--------+------------+--------
 W-SU                             | MSK    | 03:00:00   | f
 GMT+0                            | GMT    | 00:00:00   | f
 ROK                              | KST    | 09:00:00   | f
 UTC                              | UTC    | 00:00:00   | f
 US/Eastern                       | EDT    | -04:00:00  | t
 US/Pacific                       | PDT    | -07:00:00  | t
 US/Central                       | CDT    | -05:00:00  | t
 MST                              | MST    | -07:00:00  | f
 Zulu                             | UTC    | 00:00:00   | f
 posixrules                       | EDT    | -04:00:00  | t
 GMT                              | GMT    | 00:00:00   | f
 Etc/UTC                          | UTC    | 00:00:00   | f
 Etc/Zulu                         | UTC    | 00:00:00   | f
 Etc/Universal                    | UTC    | 00:00:00   | f
 Etc/GMT+2                        | -02    | -02:00:00  | f
 Etc/Greenwich                    | GMT    | 00:00:00   | f
 Etc/GMT+12                       | -12    | -12:00:00  | f
 Etc/GMT+8                        | -08    | -08:00:00  | f
 Etc/GMT-12                       | +12    | 12:00:00   | f
 WET                              | WEST   | 01:00:00   | t
 EST                              | EST    | -05:00:00  | f
 Australia/West                   | AWST   | 08:00:00   | f
 Australia/Sydney                 | AEST   | 10:00:00   | f
 GMT-0                            | GMT    | 00:00:00   | f
 PST8PDT                          | PDT    | -07:00:00  | t
 Hongkong                         | HKT    | 08:00:00   | f
 Singapore                        | +08    | 08:00:00   | f
 Universal                        | UTC    | 00:00:00   | f
 Arctic/Longyearbyen              | CEST   | 02:00:00   | t
 UCT                              | UCT    | 00:00:00   | f
 GMT0                             | GMT    | 00:00:00   | f
 Europe/London                    | BST    | 01:00:00   | t
 GB                               | BST    | 01:00:00   | t
 ...
(593 rows)

Note

Not all available time zones are shown; check your YSQL output to find the time zone you are interested in.

You can set the time zone to use for your session using the SET command. You can SET the time zone using the time zone name as listed in pg_timezone_names, but not the abbreviation. You can also set the time zone to a numeric/decimal representation of the time offset. For example, -3.5 is 3 hours and 30 minutes before UTC.

Tip

It seems logical to be able to set the time zone using the UTC_OFFSET format above. YugabyteDB allows this, however, be aware of the following behaviour if you choose this method:

When using POSIX time zone names, positive offsets are used for locations west of Greenwich. Everywhere else, YugabyteDB follows the ISO-8601 convention that positive time zone offsets are east of Greenwich. Therefore an entry of '+10:00:00' results in a time zone offset of -10 Hours as this is deemed East of Greenwich.

To show the current date and time of the underlying server, enter the following (note that the command uses the "Grave Accent" symbol, which is normally found below the Tilde ~ symbol on your keyboard):

yugabyte=# \echo `date`

Tue 09 Jul 12:27:08 AEST 2019

The server time is not the date and time of the database. However, in a single node implementation of YugabyteDB there is a relationship between your computer's date and the database date because YugabyteDB obtains the date from the server when it is started.

The following examples explore the date and time (timestamps) in the database.

yugabyte=# SHOW timezone;

 TimeZone
----------
 UTC

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp;

      current_timestamp
------------------------------
 2019-07-09 02:27:46.65152+00

yugabyte=# SET timezone = +1;

SET

yugabyte=# SHOW timezone;

 TimeZone
----------
 <+01>-01

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp;

      current_timestamp
------------------------------
 2019-07-09 03:28:11.52311+01

yugabyte=# SET timezone = -1.5;

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp;

        current_timestamp
----------------------------------
 2019-07-09 00:58:27.906963-01:30

yugabyte=# SET timezone = 'Australia/Sydney';

SET

yugabyte=# SHOW timezone;

     TimeZone
------------------
 Australia/Sydney

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp;

       current_timestamp
-------------------------------
 2019-07-09 12:28:46.610746+10

yugabyte=# SET timezone = 'UTC';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp;

       current_timestamp
-------------------------------
 2019-07-09 02:28:57.610746+00

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp AT TIME ZONE 'Australia/Sydney';

          timezone
----------------------------
 2019-07-09 12:29:03.416867

(Note that the AT TIME ZONE statement above does not cater for the variants of WITH TIME ZONE and WITHOUT TIME ZONE.)

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp(0);

   current_timestamp
------------------------
 2019-07-09 03:15:38+00

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp(2);

     current_timestamp
---------------------------
 2019-07-09 03:15:53.07+00

When working with timestamps, you can control the seconds precision by specifying a value from 0 -> 6. Timestamps cannot go beyond millisecond precision, which is 1,000,000 parts to one second.

If your application assumes a local time, ensure that it issues a SET command to set to the correct time offset. (Daylight Savings is an advanced topic, so for the time being it is recommended to instead use the offset notation, for example, -3.5 for 3 hours and 30 minutes before UTC.)

Timestamps

A database normally obtains its date and time from the underlying server. However, a distributed database is one synchronized database that is spread across many servers that are unlikely to have synchronized time.

For a detailed explanation of how time is obtained, refer to the blog post describing the architecture of the storage layer.

A simpler explanation is that the time is determined by the tablet leader of the table and this is the time used by all followers of the leader. Therefore the UTC timestamp of the underlying server can differ from the current timestamp that is used for a transaction on a particular table.

The following example assumes that you have created and connected to the yb_demo database with the Retail Analytics sample dataset:

yb_demo=# SELECT to_char(max(orders.created_at), 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI') AS "Last Order Date" from orders;

  Last Order Date
-------------------
 19-APR-2020 14:07

yb_demo=# SELECT extract(MONTH from o.created_at) AS "Mth Num", to_char(o.created_at, 'MON') AS "Month",
          extract(YEAR from o.created_at) AS "Year", count(*) AS "Orders"
          from orders o
          where o.created_at > current_timestamp(0)
          group by 1,2,3
          order by 3 DESC, 1 DESC limit 10;

 Mth Num | Month | Year | Orders
---------+-------+------+--------
       4 | APR   | 2020 |    344
       3 | MAR   | 2020 |    527
       2 | FEB   | 2020 |    543
       1 | JAN   | 2020 |    580
      12 | DEC   | 2019 |    550
      11 | NOV   | 2019 |    542
      10 | OCT   | 2019 |    540
       9 | SEP   | 2019 |    519
       8 | AUG   | 2019 |    566
       7 | JUL   | 2019 |    421
(10 rows)

yb_demo=# SELECT to_char(o.created_at, 'HH AM') AS "Popular Hours", count(*) AS "Orders"
          from orders o
          group by 1
          order by 2 DESC
          limit 4;

 Popular Hours | Orders
---------------+--------
 12 PM         |    827
 11 AM         |    820
 03 PM         |    812
 08 PM         |    812
(4 rows)

yb_demo=# update orders
          set created_at = created_at + ((floor(random() * (25-2+2) + 2))::int * interval '1 day 14 hours');

UPDATE 18760

yb_demo=# SELECT to_char(o.created_at, 'Day') AS "Top Day",
          count(o.*) AS "SALES"
          from orders o
          group by 1
          order by 2 desc;

Top Day  | SALES
-----------+---------
 Monday    |    2786
 Tuesday   |    2737
 Saturday  |    2710
 Wednesday |    2642
 Friday    |    2634
 Sunday    |    2630
 Thursday  |    2621
(7 rows)

yb_demo=# create table order_deliveries (
          order_id bigint,
          creation_date date DEFAULT current_date,
          delivery_date timestamptz);

CREATE TABLE

yb_demo=# insert into order_deliveries
          (order_id, delivery_date)
          SELECT o.id, o.created_at + ((floor(random() * (25-2+2) + 2))::int * interval '1 day 3 hours')
          from orders o
          where o.created_at < current_timestamp - (20 * interval '1 day');

INSERT 0 12268

yb_demo=# SELECT * from order_deliveries limit 5;

 order_id | creation_date |       delivery_date
----------+---------------+----------------------------
     5636 | 2019-07-09    | 2017-01-06 03:06:01.071+00
    10990 | 2019-07-09    | 2018-12-16 12:02:56.169+00
    13417 | 2019-07-09    | 2018-06-26 09:28:02.153+00
     9367 | 2019-07-09    | 2017-05-21 06:49:42.298+00
    13954 | 2019-07-09    | 2019-02-08 04:07:01.457+00
(5 rows)

yb_demo=# SELECT d.order_id, to_char(o.created_at, 'DD-MON-YYYY HH AM') AS "Ordered",
          to_char(d.delivery_date, 'DD-MON-YYYY HH AM') AS "Delivered",
          d.delivery_date - o.created_at AS "Delivery Days"
          from orders o, order_deliveries d
          where o.id = d.order_id
          and d.delivery_date - o.created_at > interval '15 days'
          order by d.delivery_date - o.created_at DESC, d.delivery_date DESC limit 10;

 order_id |      Ordered      |     Delivered     |  Delivery Days
----------+-------------------+-------------------+------------------
    10984 | 12-JUN-2019 08 PM | 07-JUL-2019 02 AM | 24 days 06:00:00
     6263 | 01-JUN-2019 03 AM | 25-JUN-2019 09 AM | 24 days 06:00:00
    10498 | 18-MAY-2019 01 AM | 11-JUN-2019 07 AM | 24 days 06:00:00
    14996 | 14-MAR-2019 05 PM | 08-APR-2019 12 AM | 24 days 06:00:00
     6841 | 06-FEB-2019 01 AM | 02-MAR-2019 07 AM | 24 days 06:00:00
    10977 | 11-MAY-2019 01 PM | 03-JUN-2019 07 PM | 23 days 06:00:00
    14154 | 09-APR-2019 01 PM | 02-MAY-2019 07 PM | 23 days 06:00:00
     6933 | 31-MAY-2019 05 PM | 23-JUN-2019 12 AM | 22 days 06:00:00
     5289 | 04-MAY-2019 04 PM | 26-MAY-2019 10 PM | 22 days 06:00:00
    10226 | 01-MAY-2019 06 AM | 23-MAY-2019 12 PM | 22 days 06:00:00
(10 rows)

Your output may differ slightly as the RANDOM() function is used to set the delivery_date in the new order_deliveries table.

You can use views of the YugabyteDB Data Catalogs to create data that is already prepared and formatted for your application code so that your SQL is simpler. The following example shows how you can nominate a shortlist of time zones that are formatted and ready to use for display purposes:

yb_demo=# CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW TZ AS
          SELECT '* Current time' AS "tzone", '' AS "offset", to_char(current_timestamp AT TIME ZONE 'Australia/Sydney', 'Dy dd-Mon-yy hh:mi PM') AS "Local Time"
          UNION
          SELECT x.name AS "tzone",
          left(x.utc_offset::text, 5) AS "offset",
          to_char(current_timestamp AT TIME ZONE x.name, 'Dy dd-Mon-yy hh:mi PM') AS "Local Time"
          from pg_catalog.pg_timezone_names x
          where  x.name like 'Australi%' or name in('Singapore', 'NZ', 'UTC')
          order by 1 asc;

CREATE VIEW

yb_demo=# SELECT * from tz;

         tzone         | offset |       Local Time
-----------------------+--------+------------------------
 * Current time        |        | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/ACT         | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Adelaide    | 09:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:19 AM
 Australia/Brisbane    | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Broken_Hill | 09:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:19 AM
 Australia/Canberra    | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Currie      | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Darwin      | 09:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:19 AM
 Australia/Eucla       | 08:45  | Wed 10-Jul-19 10:34 AM
 Australia/Hobart      | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/LHI         | 10:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 12:19 PM
 Australia/Lindeman    | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Lord_Howe   | 10:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 12:19 PM
 Australia/Melbourne   | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/NSW         | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/North       | 09:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:19 AM
 Australia/Perth       | 08:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 09:49 AM
 Australia/Queensland  | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/South       | 09:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:19 AM
 Australia/Sydney      | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Tasmania    | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/Victoria    | 10:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:49 AM
 Australia/West        | 08:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 09:49 AM
 Australia/Yancowinna  | 09:30  | Wed 10-Jul-19 11:19 AM
 NZ                    | 12:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 01:49 PM
 Singapore             | 08:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 09:49 AM
 UTC                   | 00:00  | Wed 10-Jul-19 01:49 AM
(27 rows)

Assuming that you chose the time zones that interest you, your results should be different to those shown above.

Date and time intervals

An interval is a data type that describes an increment of time. An interval allows you to show the difference between two timestamps or to create a new timestamp by adding or subtracting a particular unit of measure. Consider the following examples:

yugabyte=# SELECT current_timestamp AS "Current Timestamp",
           current_timestamp + (10 * interval '1 min') AS "Plus 10 Mins",
           current_timestamp + (10 * interval '3 min') AS "Plus 30 Mins",
           current_timestamp + (10 * interval '2 hour') AS "Plus 20 hours",
           current_timestamp + (10 * interval '1 month') AS "Plus 10 Months"

       Current Timestamp       |         Plus 10 Mins          |         Plus 30 Mins          |         Plus 20 hours         |        Plus 10 Months
-------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------
 2019-07-09 05:08:58.859123+00 | 2019-07-09 05:18:58.859123+00 | 2019-07-09 05:38:58.859123+00 | 2019-07-10 01:08:58.859123+00 | 2020-05-09 05:08:58.859123+00

yugabyte=# SELECT current_time::time(0), time '05:00' + interval '5 hours 7 mins' AS "New time";

 current_time | New Time
--------------+----------
 05:09:24     | 10:16:24

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date - date '01-01-2019' AS "Day of Year(A)", current_date - date_trunc('year', current_date) AS "Day of Year(B)";

 Day of Year(A) | Day of Year(B)
----------------+----------------
            189 | 189 days

yugabyte=# SELECT timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00' - timestamp '2019-07-09 09:00:00.000000+00' AS "Time Difference";

 Time Difference
-----------------
 01:00:00

yugabyte=# SELECT timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00' - timestamptz '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00' AS "Time Offset";

 Time Offset
-------------
 00:00:00

yugabyte=# SELECT timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00' - timestamptz '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000EST' AS "Time Offset";

 Time Offset
-------------
 -05:00:00

yugabyte=# SELECT timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00' - timestamptz '2019-07-08 10:00:00.000000EST' AS "Time Offset";

 Time Offset
-------------
 19:00:00

yugabyte=# SELECT timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00' - timestamptz '2019-07-07 10:00:00.000000EST' AS "Time Offset";

  Time Offset
----------------
 1 day 19:00:00

yugabyte=# SELECT age(timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00', timestamptz '2019-07-07 10:00:00.000000EST') AS "Age Diff";

    Age Diff
----------------
 1 day 19:00:00

yugabyte=# SELECT (extract('days' from age(timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00', timestamptz '2019-07-07 10:00:00.000000EST'))*24)+
           (extract('hours' from age(timestamp '2019-07-09 10:00:00.000000+00', timestamptz '2019-07-07 10:00:00.000000EST'))) AS "Hours Diff";

 Hours Diff
------------
         43

The above shows that date and time manipulation can be achieved in several ways. It is important to note that some outputs are of type INTEGER, whilst others are of type INTERVAL (not text as they may appear). The final YSQL above for "Hours Diff" uses the output of EXTRACT which produces an INTEGER so that it may be multiplied by the hours per day, whereas the EXTRACT function itself requires either a INTERVAL or TIMESTAMP(TZ) data type as its input.

Be sure to cast your values thoroughly. Casts can be done for time(tz), date and timestamp(tz) like MY_VALUE::timestamptz.

Note

The EXTRACT command is preferred to DATE_PART.

Manipulating using truncation

The DATE_TRUNC command is used to 'floor' the timestamp to a particular unit. The example assumes that you have created and connected to the yb_demo database with the Retail Analytics sample dataset.

yb_demo=# SELECT date_trunc('hour', current_timestamp);

       date_trunc
------------------------
 2019-07-09 06:00:00+00
(1 row)

yb_demo=# SELECT to_char((date_trunc('month', generate_series)::date)-1, 'DD-MON-YYYY') AS "Last Day of Month"
          from generate_series(current_date-(365-1), current_date, '1 month');

 Last Day of Month
-------------------
 30-JUN-2018
 31-JUL-2018
 31-AUG-2018
 30-SEP-2018
 31-OCT-2018
 30-NOV-2018
 31-DEC-2018
 31-JAN-2019
 28-FEB-2019
 31-MAR-2019
 30-APR-2019
 31-MAY-2019
(12 rows)

yb_demo=# SELECT date_trunc('days', age(created_at)) AS "Product Age" from products order by 1 desc limit 10;

      Product Age
------------------------
 3 years 2 mons 12 days
 3 years 2 mons 10 days
 3 years 2 mons 6 days
 3 years 2 mons 4 days
 3 years 1 mon 28 days
 3 years 1 mon 27 days
 3 years 1 mon 15 days
 3 years 1 mon 9 days
 3 years 1 mon 9 days
 3 years 1 mon
(10 rows)

Bringing it all together

A common requirement is to find out the date of next Monday; for example, that might be the first day of the new week for scheduling purposes. This can be achieved in many ways. The following illustrates the chaining together of different date and time operators and functions to achieve the result you want:

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char(current_date, 'Day, DD-MON-YYYY') AS "Today",
           to_char((current_timestamp AT TIME ZONE 'Australia/Sydney')::date +
           (7-(extract('isodow' from current_timestamp AT TIME ZONE 'Australia/Sydney'))::int + 1),
           'Day, DD-MON-YYYY') AS "Start of Next Week";

         Today          |   Start of Next Week
------------------------+------------------------
 Tuesday  , 09-JUL-2019 | Monday   , 15-JUL-2019

The above approach is to EXTRACT the current day of the week as an integer. As today is a Tuesday, the result will be 2. As you know there are 7 days per week, you need to target a calculation that has a result of 8, being 1 day more than the 7th day. We use this to calculate how many days to add to the current date (7 days - 2 + 1 day) to arrive at the next Monday which is day of the week (ISO dow) #1. The addition of the AT TIME ZONE is purely illustrative and would not impact the result because you are dealing with days, and the time zone difference is only +10 hours, therefore it does not affect the date. However, if you are working with hours or smaller, then the time zone can potentially have a bearing on your result.

Fun Fact
For the very curious, why is there a gap after 'Tuesday' and 'Monday' in the example above? All 'Day' values are space padded to 9 characters. You could use string functions to remove the extra spaces if needed for formatting purposes or you could do a trimmed TO_CHAR for the 'Day' then concatenate with a comma and another TO_CHAR for the 'DD-MON-YYYY'.

Ambiguity - using DateStyle

People in different locations of the world are familiar with local representations of dates. Times are reasonably similar, but dates can differ. The USA uses 3/5/19, whereas in Australia you would use 5/3/19, and in Europe either 5.3.19 or 5/3/19. What is the date in question? 5th March, 2019.

YugabyteDB has the DateStyle setting that you apply to your session so that ambiguous dates can be determined and the display of dates in YSQL can be defaulted to a particular format.

By default, YugabyteDB uses the ISO Standard of YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS. Other settings you can use are 'SQL', 'German', and 'Postgres'. These are all used in the following examples.

All settings except ISO allow you specify whether a Day appears before or after the Month. Therefore, a setting of 'DMY' results in 3/5 being 3rd May, whereas 'MDY' results in 5th March.

If you are reading dates as text fields from a file or any source that is not a YugabyteDB date or timestamp data type, then it is very important that you set your DateStyle properly unless you are very specific on how to convert a text field to a date - an example of which is included below.

Note that YugabyteDB always interprets '6/6' as 6th June, and '13/12' as 13th December (because the month cannot be 13), but what about '6/12'? Let's work through some examples in YSQL.

yugabyte=# SHOW DateStyle;

 DateStyle
-----------
 ISO, DMY

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time(0), current_timestamp(0);

 current_date | current_time |   current_timestamp
--------------+--------------+------------------------
 2019-07-09   | 20:26:28+00  | 2019-07-09 20:26:28+00

yugabyte=# SET DateStyle = 'SQL, DMY';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time(0), current_timestamp(0);

 current_date | current_time |    current_timestamp
--------------+--------------+-------------------------
 09/07/2019   | 20:26:48+00  | 09/07/2019 20:26:48 UTC

yugabyte=# SET DateStyle = 'SQL, MDY';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time(0), current_timestamp(0);

 current_date | current_time |    current_timestamp
--------------+--------------+-------------------------
 07/09/2019   | 20:27:04+00  | 07/09/2019 20:27:04 UTC

yugabyte=# SET DateStyle = 'German, DMY';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time(0), current_timestamp(0);

 current_date | current_time |    current_timestamp
--------------+--------------+-------------------------
 09.07.2019   | 20:27:30+00  | 09.07.2019 20:27:30 UTC

yugabyte=# SET DateStyle = 'Postgres, DMY';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time(0), current_timestamp(0);

 current_date | current_time |      current_timestamp
--------------+--------------+------------------------------
 09-07-2019   | 20:28:07+00  | Tue 09 Jul 20:28:07 2019 UTC

yugabyte=# SET DateStyle = 'Postgres, MDY';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date, current_time(0), current_timestamp(0);

 current_date | current_time |      current_timestamp
--------------+--------------+------------------------------
 07-09-2019   | 20:28:38+00  | Tue Jul 09 20:28:38 2019 UTC

yugabyte=# SELECT '01-01-2019'::date;

    date
------------
 01-01-2019

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char('01-01-2019'::date, 'DD-MON-YYYY');

   to_char
-------------
 01-JAN-2019

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char('05-03-2019'::date, 'DD-MON-YYYY');

   to_char
-------------
 03-MAY-2019

The following example illustrates the difficulty that can occur with dates:

yugabyte=# SET DateStyle = 'Postgres, DMY';

SET

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char('05-03-2019'::date, 'DD-MON-YYYY');

   to_char
-------------
 05-MAR-2019

The system expects a 'DMY' value, but the source is in the format 'MDY'. YugabyteDB doesn't know how to convert ambiguous cases, so be explicit as follows:

yugabyte=# SELECT to_char(to_date('05-03-2019', 'MM-DD-YYYY'), 'DD-MON-YYYY');

   to_char
-------------
 03-MAY-2019

It is recommended to pass all text representations of date and time data types through a TO_DATE or TO_TIMESTAMP function. There is no 'to_time' function as its format is always fixed of 'HH24:MI:SS.ms', therefore be careful of AM/PM times and your milliseconds can also be thousandths of a second, so either 3 or 6 digits should be supplied.

Getting dirty - into the logs you go

Note

The following is for those interested in some of the finer points of control.

YugabyteDB has inherited a lot of capabilities similar to the PostgreSQL SQL API, and this explains why when you start to look under the hood, it is looks very much like PostgreSQL.

YugabyteDB tracks its settings in its catalog. The following example queries some relevant settings and transforms the layout of the query results using the Expanded display setting. This can be done in any database.

yugabyte=# \x on

Expanded display is on.

yugabyte=# SELECT name, short_desc, coalesce(setting, reset_val) AS "setting_value", sourcefile
          from pg_catalog.pg_settings
          where name in('log_timezone', 'log_directory', 'log_filename', 'lc_time')
          order by name asc;

-[ RECORD 1 ]-+----------------------------------------------------------------
name          | lc_time
short_desc    | Sets the locale for formatting date and time values.
setting_value | en_US.UTF-8
sourcefile    | /home/xxxxx/yugabyte-data/node-1/disk-1/pg_data/postgresql.conf
-[ RECORD 2 ]-+----------------------------------------------------------------
name          | log_directory
short_desc    | Sets the destination directory for log files.
setting_value | /home/xxxxx/yugabyte-data/node-1/disk-1/yb-data/tserver/logs
sourcefile    |
-[ RECORD 3 ]-+----------------------------------------------------------------
name          | log_filename
short_desc    | Sets the file name pattern for log files.
setting_value | postgresql-%Y-%m-%d_%H%M%S.log
sourcefile    |
-[ RECORD 4 ]-+----------------------------------------------------------------
name          | log_timezone
short_desc    | Sets the time zone to use in log messages.
setting_value | UTC
sourcefile    | /home/xxxxx/yugabyte-data/node-1/disk-1/pg_data/postgresql.conf

yugabyte=# \x off

Using the log_directory and log_filename references, you can find the YugabyteDB log to examine the timestamps being inserted into the logs. These are all UTC timestamps and should remain that way.

You can see that the lc_time setting is currently UTF and the file the setting is obtained from is listed. Opening that file as sudo/superuser, you see contents that look like the below (search for 'datestyle'):

# - Locale and Formatting -

datestyle = 'iso, mdy'
#intervalstyle = 'postgres'
timezone = 'UTC'
#timezone_abbreviations = 'Default'     # Select the set of available time zone
                                        # abbreviations.  Currently, there are
                                        #   Default
                                        #   Australia (historical usage)
                                        #   India
                                        # You can create your own file in
                                        # share/timezonesets/.
#extra_float_digits = 0                 # min -15, max 3
#client_encoding = sql_ascii            # actually, defaults to database
                                        # encoding

# These settings are initialized by initdb, but they can be changed.
lc_messages = 'en_US.UTF-8'                     # locale for system error message
                                        # strings
lc_monetary = 'en_US.UTF-8'                     # locale for monetary formatting
lc_numeric = 'en_US.UTF-8'                      # locale for number formatting
lc_time = 'en_US.UTF-8'                         # locale for time formatting

# default configuration for text search
default_text_search_config = 'pg_catalog.english'

Make a backup of the original file and then change datestyle = 'SQL, DMY', timezone = 'GB' (or any other time zone name you prefer) and save the file. You need to restart your YugabyteDB cluster for the changes to take effect.

After the cluster is running as expected, do the following:

$ ./bin/ysqlsh

ysqlsh (11.2)
Type "help" for help.

yugabyte=# SHOW timezone;

 TimeZone
----------
 GB

yugabyte=# SELECT current_date;

 current_date
--------------
 09/07/2019

You don't need to make those settings each time you enter YSQL. However, applications should not rely upon these settings, they should always SET their requirements before submitting their SQL. These settings should only be used by 'casual querying' such as you are doing now.

Conclusion

As illustrated, dates and times is a comprehensive area that is well addressed by PostgreSQL and hence by YSQL in YugabyteDB. All of the date-time data types are implemented, and the vast majority of methods, operators, and special values are available. The functionality is complex enough for you to be able to code any shortfalls that you find in the YSQL implementation of its SQL API.