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Date formats
Example
Date formats
192
format_string
Specifies the format of the output. SQL ignores the format string if the expression
argument does not evaluate to a date or time.
Supply the format strings, enclosed in single quotation marks, as the second argument to the
function. The format strings are case sensitive. For instance, SQL replaces DAY with all
uppercase letters, but follows the case of Day.
The following example illustrates the difference between how a date value displays with and
without the TO_CHAR function:
SELECT C1 FROM T2;
C1
--
09/29/1952
1 record selected
SELECT TO_CHAR(C1, 'Day, Month ddth'),
TO_CHAR(C2, 'HH12 a.m.') FROM T2;
TO_CHAR(C1,DAY, MONTH DDTH) TO_CHAR(C2,HH12 A.M.)
--------------------------- ---------------------
Monday , September 29th 02 p.m.
1 record selected
A date-format string can contain any of the following format keywords along with other
characters. The format keywords in the format string are replaced by corresponding values to
get the result. The other characters are displayed as literals. Table 46 lists the date formats and
their corresponding descriptions.
Table 46: Date formats and descriptions (1 of 2)
Date
format Description
CC The century as a two-digit number.
YYYY The year as a four-digit number.
YYY The last three digits of the year.
YY The last two digits of the year.
Y The last digit of the year.
Y,YYY The year as a four-digit number with a comma after the first digit.
Q The quarter of the year as a one-digit number (with values 1, 2, 3, or 4).
MM The month value as a two-digit number (in the range 01-12).