Forum OpenACS Q&A: Warning, Debian postgresql package default date input format breaks things

Greetings,

I just upgraded my host from the Postgres Debian package release 7.4.2-4 to PG 7.4.2-6.  I'm running unstable on this host.  The default 'datestyle' in /etc/postgresql/postgresql.conf has changed to "SQL,European".  I discovered pretty quickly that this breaks the users page, among other things I think (probably anything that calls lc_time_fmt).

The fix is to change it to

datestyle = 'ISO,US'

This probably should be added to the installation docs if it hasn't already.

dpkg-reconfigure postgresql

There are a few options in there -- the third or fourth deals with dates.

Otherwise, next time you upgrade and it overwrites your postgresql config, you'll be changing it again.