in postgres, can you set the default formatting for a timestamp, by session or globally?

Question

In Postgres, is it possible to change the default format mask for a timestamp?

right now comes back as

2012-01-03 20:27:53.611489

I

Answer 1

to_char() is used to create a string literal. If you want a different timestamp value, use:

date_trunc('minute', now())

For an input mask you can use:

to_timestamp('2012-01-03 20:27:53.611489', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI')

Cast to timestamp without time zone by appending ::timestamp.

To my knowledge, there is not setting in PostgreSQL that would trim seconds from timestamp literals by default.