Section 6.

4: Extract the Year, Month, Day, Hour, Minute or

Second Components of a Date

The year, month or day components of a DATE data type can be found using the EXTRACT( [ YEAR |
MONTH | DAY

] FROM datevalue )

SELECT EXTRACT (YEAR FROM DATE '2016-07-25') AS YEAR,

EXTRACT (MONTH FROM DATE '2016-07-25') AS MONTH,

EXTRACT (DAY FROM DATE '2016-07-25') AS DAY

FROM DUAL;

Outputs:

YEAR MONTH DAY

---- ----- ---

2016 7 25

The time (hour, minute or second) components can be found by either:

Using CAST( datevalue AS TIMESTAMP ) to convert the DATE to a TIMESTAMP and then using EXTRACT( [

HOUR | MINUTE | SECOND ] FROM timestampvalue ); or

Using TO_CHAR( datevalue, format_model ) to get the value as a string.

For example:

SELECT EXTRACT( HOUR FROM CAST( datetime AS TIMESTAMP ) ) AS Hours,

EXTRACT( MINUTE FROM CAST( datetime AS TIMESTAMP ) ) AS Minutes,

EXTRACT( SECOND FROM CAST( datetime AS TIMESTAMP ) ) AS Seconds

FROM (

SELECT TO_DATE( '2016-01-01 09:42:01', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' ) AS datetime FROM DUAL

GoalKicker.com – Oracle® Database Notes for Professionals 16

);

Outputs:

HOURS MINUTES SECONDS

----- ------- -------

9 42 1
Section 6.5: Generating Dates with No Time Component

All DATEs have a time component; however, it is customary to store dates which do not need to include
time

information with the hours/minutes/seconds set to zero (i.e. midnight).

Use an ANSI DATE literal (using ISO 8601 Date format):

SELECT DATE '2000-01-01' FROM DUAL;

Convert it from a string literal using TO_DATE():

SELECT TO_DATE( '2001-01-01', 'YYYY-MM-DD' ) FROM DUAL;

(More information on the date format models can be found in the Oracle documentation.)

or:

SELECT TO_DATE(

'January 1, 2000, 00:00 A.M.',

'Month dd, YYYY, HH12:MI A.M.',

'NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE = American'

FROM DUAL;

(If you are converting language specific terms such as month names then it is good practice to include
the 3rd nlsparam

parameter to the TO_DATE() function and specify the language to be expected.)

Section 6.6: Generating Dates with a Time Component

Convert it from a string literal using TO_DATE():

SELECT TO_DATE( '2000-01-01 12:00:00', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' ) FROM DUAL;

Or use a TIMESTAMP literal:

CREATE TABLE date_table(

date_value DATE

);

INSERT INTO date_table ( date_value ) VALUES ( TIMESTAMP '2000-01-01 12:00:00' );

Oracle will implicitly cast a TIMESTAMP to a DATE when storing it in a DATE column of a table; however
you can

explicitly CAST() the value to a DATE:

GoalKicker.com – Oracle® Database Notes for Professionals 17

Section 6.7: The Format of a Date

In Oracle a DATE data type does not have a format; when Oracle sends a DATE to the client program
(SQL/Plus,

SQL/Developer, Toad, Java, Python, etc) it will send 7- or 8- bytes which represent the date.

A DATE which is not stored in a table (i.e. generated by SYSDATE and having "type 13" when using the
DUMP()

command) has 8-bytes and has the structure (the numbers on the right are the internal representation
of

2012-11-26 16:41:09):

BYTE VALUE EXAMPLE

---- ------------------------------- --------------------------------------

1 Year modulo 256 220

2 Year multiples of 256 7 (7 * 256 + 220 = 2012)

3 Month 11

4 Day 26

5 Hours 16

6 Minutes 41

7 Seconds 9

8 Unused 0

A DATE which is stored in a table ("type 12" when using the DUMP() command) has 7-bytes and has the
structure (the

numbers on the right are the internal representation of 2012-11-26 16:41:09):

BYTE VALUE EXAMPLE

---- ------------------------------- --------------------------------------

1 ( Year multiples of 100 ) + 100 120

2 ( Year modulo 100 ) + 100 112 ((120-100)*100 + (112-100) = 2012)

3 Month 11

4 Day 26
5 Hours + 1 17

6 Minutes + 1 42

7 Seconds + 1 10

If you want the date to have a specific format then you will need to convert it to something that has a
format (i.e. a

string). The SQL client may implicitly do this or you can explicitly convert the value to a string using
TO_CHAR( DATE,

format_model, nls_params ).

Section 6.8: Converting Dates to a String

Use TO_CHAR( DATE [, format_model [, nls_params]] ):

(Note: if a format model is not provided then the NLS_DATE_FORMAT session parameter will be used as
the default format

model; this can be different for every session so should not be relied on. It is good practice to always
specify the format

model.)

CREATE TABLE table_name (

date_value DATE

);

INSERT INTO table_name ( date_value ) VALUES ( DATE '2000-01-01' );

INSERT INTO table_name ( date_value ) VALUES ( TIMESTAMP '2016-07-21 08:00:00' );

INSERT INTO table_name ( date_value ) VALUES ( SYSDATE );

Then:

GoalKicker.com – Oracle® Database Notes for Professionals 18

SELECT TO_CHAR( date_value, 'YYYY-MM-DD' ) AS formatted_date FROM table_name;

Outputs:

FORMATTED_DATE

--------------

2000-01-01

2016-07-21

2016-07-21
And:

SELECT TO_CHAR(

date_value,

'FMMonth d yyyy, hh12:mi:ss AM',

'NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE = French'

) AS formatted_date

FROM table_name;

Outputs:

FORMATTED_DATE

-----------------------------

Janvier 01 2000, 12:00:00 AM

Juillet 21 2016, 08:00:00 AM

Juillet 21 2016, 19:08:31 PM

Section 6.9: Changing How SQL/Plus or SQL Developer Display

Dates

When SQL/Plus or SQL Developer display dates they will perform an implicit conversion to a string using
the default

date format model (see the Setting the Default Date Format Model example).

You can change how a date is displayed by changing the NLS_DATE_FORMAT parameter.

Section 6.10: Time Zones and Daylight Savings Time

The DATE data type does not handle time zones or changes in daylight savings time.

Either:

use the TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data type; or

handle the changes in your application logic.

A DATE can be stored as Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and converted to the current session time
zone like this:

SELECT FROM_TZ(

CAST(

TO_DATE( '2016-01-01 12:00:00', 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' )

),

'UTC'

AT LOCAL AS TIME

GoalKicker.com – Oracle® Database Notes for Professionals 19

FROM DUAL;

If you run ALTER SESSION SET TIME_ZONE = '+01:00'; then the output is:

TIME

------------------------------------

2016-01-01 13:00:00.000000000 +01:00

and ALTER SESSION SET TIME_ZONE = 'PST'; then the output is:

TIME

------------------------------------

2016-01-01 04:00:00.000000000 PST

Section 6.11: Leap Seconds

Oracle does not handle leap seconds. See My Oracle Support note 2019397.2 and 730795.1 for more
details.

Section 6.12: Getting the Day of the Week

You can use TO_CHAR( date_value, 'D' ) to get the day-of-week.

However, this is dependent on the NLS_TERRITORY session parameter:

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = 'AMERICA'; -- First day of week is Sunday

SELECT TO_CHAR( DATE '1970-01-01', 'D' ) FROM DUAL;

Outputs 5

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY = 'UNITED KINGDOM'; -- First day of week is Monday

SELECT TO_CHAR( DATE '1970-01-01', 'D' ) FROM DUAL;

Outputs 4

To do this independent of the NLS settings, you can truncate the date to midnight of the current day (to
remove any
fractions of days) and subtract the date truncated to the start of the current iso-week (which always
starts on

Monday):

SELECT TRUNC( date_value ) - TRUNC( date_value, 'IW' ) + 1 FROM DUAL.

Section 6.2: Setting the Default Date Format Model

When Oracle implicitly converts from a DATE to a string or vice-versa (or when TO_CHAR() or TO_DATE()
are explicitly

called without a format model) the NLS_DATE_FORMAT session parameter will be used as the format
model in the

conversion. If the literal does not match the format model then an exception will be raised.

You can review this parameter using:

SELECT VALUE FROM NLS_SESSION_PARAMETERS WHERE PARAMETER = 'NLS_DATE_FORMAT';

You can set this value within your current session using:

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS';

(Note: this does not change the value for any other users.)

If you rely on the NLS_DATE_FORMAT to provide the format mask in TO_DATE() or TO_CHAR() then you
should not be

surprised when your queries break if this value is ever changed.

Section 6.3: Date Arithmetic - Di erence between Dates in

Months or Years

The difference in months between two dates can be found using the MONTHS_BETWEEN( date1, date2
):

SELECT MONTHS_BETWEEN( DATE '2016-03-10', DATE '2015-03-10' ) AS difference FROM DUAL;

Outputs:

DIFFERENCE

----------

12

If the difference includes part months then it will return the fraction of the month based on there being
31 days in

each month:
SELECT MONTHS_BETWEEN( DATE '2015-02-15', DATE '2015-01-01' ) AS difference FROM DUAL;

Outputs:

GoalKicker.com – Oracle® Database Notes for Professionals 15

DIFFERENCE

----------

1.4516129

Due to MONTHS_BETWEEN assuming 31 days per month when there can be fewer days per month then
this can result

in different values for differences spanning the boundaries between months.

Example:

SELECT MONTHS_BETWEEN( DATE'2016-02-01', DATE'2016-02-01' - INTERVAL '1' DAY ) AS "JAN-FEB",

MONTHS_BETWEEN( DATE'2016-03-01', DATE'2016-03-01' - INTERVAL '1' DAY ) AS "FEB-MAR",

MONTHS_BETWEEN( DATE'2016-04-01', DATE'2016-04-01' - INTERVAL '1' DAY ) AS "MAR-APR",

MONTHS_BETWEEN( DATE'2016-05-01', DATE'2016-05-01' - INTERVAL '1' DAY ) AS "APR-MAY"

FROM DUAL;

Output:

JAN-FEB FEB-MAR MAR-APR APR-MAY

------- ------- ------- -------

0.03226 0.09677 0.03226 0.06452

The difference in years can be found by dividing the month difference by 12.