Date functions

Func-tion

Syntax

Purpose

Example

ADD_ MONTHS

Returns the date d plus n months. The ar­g­u­ment n can be any integer. If d is the last day of the month or if the resulting month has fewer days than the day com­ponent of d, then the result is the last day of the resulting month. Otherwise, the result has the same day component as d.  

SELECT TO_CHAR( ADD_MONTHS(Hiredate,1), 'DD-MON-YYYY')

FROM TEACHER

WHERE Name = 'John';

LAST_ DAY

Returns the date of the last day of the month that contains d. You might use this function to determine how many days are left in the current month.

SELECT SYSDATE,

LAST_DAY(SYSDATE),

LAST_DAY(SYSDATE)-SYSDATE

FROM DUAL;

NEXT_ DAY

Returns the date of the first weekday named by char that is later than the date d. The argument char must be a day of the week in your session's date language, either the full name or the abbreviation.

SELECTNEXT_DAY(

'15-MAR-98','TUESDAY')

AS "NEXT DAY"

FROM DUAL;

MONTHS_ BETWEEN

Returns number of months between dates d1 and d2. If d1 is later than d2, result is positive; if earlier, negative. If d1 and d2 are either the same days of the month or both last days of months, the result is always an integer. Otherwise Oracle calculates the fractional portion of the result based on a 31-day month and considers the difference in time components of d1 and d2

SELECT MONTHS_BETWEEN (

TO_DATE('28.10.2002',

'DD.MM.YYYY'),

TO_DATE('28.10.2002',

'DD.MM.YYYY'))

FROM DUAL

NEW_ TIME

Returns the date and time in time zone z2 when date and time in time zone z1 are d. The arguments z1 and z2 can be any of these text strings:

SYSDATE

Returns the current date and time. Requi­r­es no arguments. You can’t use this fun­c­tion in the condition of CHECK constraint

SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,

'DD-MM-YYYY HH24:MI:SS)'

FROM DUAL;