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