discussion:
this bug is a problem because it suggests that daily dumps of the database
cannot be restored using psql -f or pg_restore (regardless of dump format)
if there are any tables that contain infinite values.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
here is the exact sequence of steps required to produce my error:
postgres]$ createdb foo
postgres]$ psql foo
foo=# create table foo ( foo interval );
foo=# insert into foo( foo ) values( timestamp 'infinity' - timestamp '-infinity' );
foo=# \q
postgres]$ pg_dump -t foo foo >foo.sql
postgres]$ psql -c 'drop table foo' foo
postgres]$ psql -f foo.sql foo
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
output i got:
CREATE
UPDATE 1
psql:foo.sql:21: ERROR: copy: line 1, Bad interval external representation '-2147483648 --2147483648:-2147483648:
inf'
psql:foo.sql:21: PQendcopy: resetting connection
BEGIN
CREATE
INSERT 0 0
UPDATE 0
DROP
COMMIT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
output i expected:
UPDATE 1
BEGIN
CREATE
INSERT 0 0
UPDATE 0
DROP
COMMIT
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
i compiled with all defaults except the install directory:
./configure --prefix=/opt/pgsql
we use the startup script from the documentation.
it starts the database like this from rc.3:
PGACCOUNT="postgres"
POSTMASTER="postmaster"
FACILITY="local5"
PGLOGFILE="/tmp/postgres.log"
PGOPTS="-i -d 0"
. /etc/rc.d/init.d/functions
. /etc/sysconfig/network
su - ${PGACCOUNT} -c "(${POSTMASTER} ${PGOPTS} 2>&1 | logger -p
${FACILITY}.notice) &" > /dev/null 2>&1 &
the bug can be reproduced in both
PostgreSQL 7.0.3 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc egcs-2.91.66
and
PostgreSQL 7.1beta2 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC egcs-2.91.66
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
platform info:
RedHat Linux 2.2.17 i686 unknown
gcc version egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)
256 MB RAM
hope all this helps.
-tfo