Sams Teach Yourself SQL in 21 Days, Fourth Edition

DATE Conversions

If you want to add a touch of class to the way dates are displayed, you can use the TO_CHAR function to change the date picture. This example starts by obtaining today's date:

SQL> select sysdate
  2  from dual;

SYSDATE
---------
08-MAY-97

When converting a date to a character string, you use the TO_CHAR function with the following syntax:

TO_CHAR(sysdate,'date picture')

date picture is how you want the date to look. Some of the most common parts of the date picture are as follows:

Month	The current month spelled out
Mon	The current month abbreviated
Day	The current day of the week
mm	The number of the current month
yy	The last two numbers ...