I'm seeing people do this all the time. They want to hammer a date or timestamp constant into their SQL query, and the only function they know is the TO_DATE() or TO_TIMESTAMP() date parsing function: SELECT TO_DATE ('20150801', 'yyyymmdd') FROM DUAL; As observed in this Stack Overflow question, for instance: TO_DATE ('20150801', 'yyyymmdd') AS DAY_20150801_TOTAL, … Continue reading Don’t Format Dates in SQL. Use the DATE Literal!
Tag: Timestamp
What’s Even Harder Than Dates and Timezones? Dates and Timezones in SQL / JDBC!
(Notice, this post has been written a while ago. jOOQ now supports JSR 310 data types) There was an interesting discussion recently on the jOOQ mailing list about jOOQ's current lack of out-of-the-box support for TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data types. No one said that date, time and timezones are easy! There's an amusing piece … Continue reading What’s Even Harder Than Dates and Timezones? Dates and Timezones in SQL / JDBC!
Are You Binding Your Oracle DATEs Correctly? I Bet You Aren’t
Oracle database has its ways. In my SQL talks at conferences, I love to confuse people with the following Oracle facts: ... and the answer is, of course: Isn't it horrible to make empty string the same thing as NULL? Please, Oracle... The only actually reasonable slide to follow the previous two is this one: … Continue reading Are You Binding Your Oracle DATEs Correctly? I Bet You Aren’t
You’re Very Likely to Have Gotten SQL Date Time Arithmetic Wrong!
You're very likely to have gotten SQL date time arithmetic wrong. And why is that? Google it! You'll quickly find blog posts like these: Date / Time Arithmetic with Oracle 9 / 10 How does one add a day/hour/minute/second to a date value? Orace Date Arithmetic Tips And they're all advocating stuff like this: SYSDATE … Continue reading You’re Very Likely to Have Gotten SQL Date Time Arithmetic Wrong!