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Whoever set up the database for my current work project apparently thought that wasn't enough, because it's got a whole lot of columns called "dateTimeStamp" wh
by PhasmaFelis 7y ago
Whoever set up the database for my current work project apparently thought that wasn't enough, because it's got a whole lot of columns called "dateTimeStamp" which--on inspection--turn out to be VARCHARs containing a string representation of a timestamp. In ISO 8601 format. The one that looks like "2019-12-11T00:04:37.754329Z".
Yes, they actually have six decimal digits of precision. For tracking boxes on a warehouse conveyor belt.
- selimthegrim 7y agoMaybe they worked for NATO in a previous job?
- mjbmitch 7y agoThe precision is likely the default of whatever instrument recorded the timestamps. At this point, however, having to use VARCHARs instead of some native representation of ISO 8601 is entirely the fault of Oracle. It has been a published standard for over 30 years and should be directly supported.
- PhasmaFelis 7y ago> At this point, however, having to use VARCHARs instead of some native representation of ISO 8601 is entirely the fault of Oracle. I wish I could blame Oracle. We're using Watcom SQL on a Sybase DB.
- blattimwind 7y agoFirst time I've seen someone complain about finding standard ISO 8601 in a database.
- PhasmaFelis 7y agoThis particular database is mainly used to display results to humans, and whoever wrote the original code didn't bother to convert it from 8601 to human-readable (one of the things I'm fixing), so it stands out.