Is there an equivalent function to isdate () in oracle - sql

CASE WHEN ISDATE(LTRIM(RTRIM(rard.thevalue))) = 1
THEN CONVERT(smalldatetime, LTRIM(RTRIM(rard.thevalue)))
WHEN ISDATE(LTRIM(RTRIM(rard2.thevalue))) = 1
THEN CONVERT(smalldatetime, LTRIM(RTRIM(rard2.thevalue)))
ELSE CONVERT(smalldatetime, LTRIM(RTRIM(r.receiptdate)))
I have this syntax in SQL which has to get converted into oracle. The column "thevalue" has different formats in it ex: HH:MM , MM/DD/YYYY, HH:MM:SS etc. So isdate() function is checking whether its matching the date format and then pulling the data. I would need similar kind of function to check whether the columns value is matching date time format and then display as date.

The Oracle equivalent would be validate_conversion().
However, unlike SQL Server, Oracle won't recognize varying formats. You need to explicitly specify the format that you want (unless your dates already are in the format configured by nls_date_format). Basically, you could test each possible format one after the other, and stop whenever one is recognized.
Since your purpose is to actually convert the string to a date, it would be simpler to use directly to_date(), with the on conversion error clause.
Consider something like:
coalesce(
to_date(thevalue default null on conversion error, 'MM/DD/YYYY'),
to_date(thevalue default null on conversion error, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'),
...
)
Notes:
the function happily ignores leading and trailing spaces, so there is no need to trim() beforehand
this requires Oracle 12.2 or higher
isdate() is not really safe in SQL Server; better use try_convert(), which basically behaves like Oracle's to_date() with default null on conversion error

Related

I have an oracle table which has date in dd-mm-yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy format in same field. Now i have to convert into one common format

I have an oracle table which has date in dd-mm-yyyy and dd/mm/yyyy format in same field. Now i have to convert into one common format.
Please suggest how to approach this?
I did tried but it is failing as it is failing due to invalid month.
Is there a way i can first identify what format the date is and then based on case statement i might convert.
or something easy way? Please
I trust you've learnt your lesson and you're now going to store these dates in the date data type.
Your two different date formats actually aren't important, Oracle already is a little over accepting when it comes to separating characters.
e.g
to_date('01/01/1900','dd-mm-yyyy')
Does not error
I did tried but it is failing as it is failing due to invalid month.
Your error is coming because you've allowed a value that doesn't match either of those formats into your string column.
If you are on version 12.2 at least (which you should be in 2020) then you can use the validate_conversion function to identify rows that don't convert to a date with your format (https://docs.oracle.com/en/database/oracle/oracle-database/12.2/sqlrf/VALIDATE_CONVERSION.html#GUID-DC485EEB-CB6D-42EF-97AA-4487884CB2CD)
select string_column
from my_table
where validate_conversion(string_column AS DATE,'dd/mm/yyyy') = 0
The other additional helper we got in 12.2 was the on conversion error clause of to_date. So you can do.
alter table my_table add my_date date;
update my_table set my_date = to_date(my_string default null on conversion error,'dd/mm/yyyy');
If you are confident that there is no other format than those two, a simple approach is replace():
update mytable set mystring = replace(mystring, '/', '-');
This turns all dates to format dd-mm-yyyy.
I would suggest taking a step forward and convert these strings to a date column.
alter table mytable add mydate date;
update mytable set mydate = to_date(replace(mystring, '/', '-'), 'dd-mm-yyyy');
This will fail if invalid date strings are met. I tend to consider that a good thing, since it clearly signals that this a problem with the data. If you want to avoid that, you can use on conversion error, available starting Oracle 12:
to_date(
replace(mystring, '/', '-') default null on conversion error,
'dd-mm-yyyy'
)
Then you can remove the string column, which is no longer needed.

Conversion of Date for direct sql query in OBIEE using presentation variable

I am trying to achieve this use case: when there is no date picked I want to show all the results but when I have date picked I want it to filter.
fyi:
the date getting picked are YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS in the presentation variable, but the date format in my query is dd-mon-yy. So when I need to convert the value of the presntation varible to dd-mon-yy.
OBIEE doesnt like when I play around with the values, and the BI server does not let me look at the error message.
I dont have access to change the format on the server level so my only option is to use formulas
I'm new to presentation variable.
ALso I need you'll to remember if there is no date selected in the prompt I would want all values returned
code:
and
( ( main_query.schd_compare >= (#{pv_task_sch_st_date}['#']{NVL(main_query.schd_compare,'None')})
)
AND (
main_query.schd_compare <= (#{pv_task_sch_end_date}['#']{NVL(main_query.schd_compare,'None')})
) )
I need help with syntax for obiee
Inside the database, it doesn't care if a date is "DD Mon YY" or "YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS". Those are just formatting, and the actual bit value of that date will be the same. So if both "dates" are actually a date datatype, then you can just use something like:
....
AND (
(
main_query.schd_compare >= NVL(pv_task_sch_st_date,main_query.schd_compare)
)
AND
(
main_query.schd_compare <= NVL(pv_task_sch_end_date,main_query.schd_compare)
)
)
That's if your pv_task_sch_???_date are passed as NULL values when not selected. Oracle does seem to treat empty strings and NULL the same in comparisons like this, but you it can be hard to debug if you get in the habit of relying on NULL and '' being the same.
As for your query, my guess is that your pv_task... values are actually being passed to your query as a some sort of string. If that's the case, then you'll need to put a TO_DATE() around your pv_task... variables.
Take a look at https://dbfiddle.uk/?rdbms=oracle_11.2&fiddle=2066b2005a22769e785815f6b03750a1. I stepped through a few examples of how your dates can be treated.
I did say earlier that the database doesn't care when format your date is in. And it is stored the same, no matter the format. But when you're using TO_DATE() or other similar functions, Oracle wants you to specify the proper mask of your data. If you send "01 Jan 99" to TO_DATE(), Oracle needs to know how to interpret that value. So you tell it that the string is "DD Mon YY". You can't do TO_DATE('2018-09-10','YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') because my input doesn't have a time component. ( I would also caution about using 2-digit years. )
By the way, I hate dates. And dealing with dates in Oracle reinforces that hatred.

SQL Date Format Conversion

I have a question regarding SQL dates.
The table I am working with has a date field in the following format: "22-SEP-08". The field is a date column.
I am trying to figure out how to output records from 1/1/2000 to present day.
The code below is not filtering the date field:
Select distinct entity.lt_date
from feed.entitytable entity
where entity.lt_date >= '2000-01-01'
Any help regarding this issue is much appreciated. Thanks!
Edit: I am using Oracle SQL Developer to write my code.
DATEs do not have "a format". Any format you see is applied by the application displaying the date value.
You can either change the configuration of SQL Developer to display dates in a different format, or you can use to_char() to format the date the way you want.
The reason your statement does not work, is most probably because of the implicit data type conversion that you are relying on.
'2000-01-01' is a string value, not a date. And the string is converted using the NLS settings of your session. Given the fact that you see dates displayed as DD-MON-YY means that that is the format that is used by the evil implicit data type conversion. You should supply date values always as real date literals.
There are two ways of specifying a real date literal. The first is ANSI SQL and simple uses the keyword DATE in front of an ISO formatted string:
where entity.lt_date >= DATE '2000-01-01'
Note the DATE keyword in front of the string, wich makes it a real date literal not a string expression.
The other option is to use to_date() to convert a character value into a date:
where entity.lt_date >= to_date('2000-01-01', 'yyyy-mm-dd');
More details about specifying date literals can be found in the manual:
Date literals
to_date function
My guess is the data type isn't a Date. Just in case its a char type, try to convert it using the Oracle TO_DATE() function. The Oracle documentation below should help you with parameters.
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B19306_01/server.102/b14200/functions183.htm
An implicit datatype conversion bites once again.
You're right. The predicate is not doing the comparison you are expecting,
Oracle is performing an implicit datatype conversion, from DATE to VARCHAR, so that it can do a comparison to the string literal.
If lt_date column is DATE datatype, then Oracle is seeing your where clause:
where entity.lt_date >= '2000-01-01'
Oracle is actually seeing it as if it's written like this:
where TO_CHAR(entity.lt_date) >= '2000-01-01'
And that's where the "format" problem comes in. The column itself does not have a "format". Because the second argument to the TO_CHAR function is not supplied, Oracle is using the value of the NLS_DATE_FORMAT parameter (from your session). And that's probably set to DD-MON-YY. Which is why that's the "format" you're seeing when you a run a SELECT statement in SQL*Plus. Because the DATE value is (again) being run through a TO_CHAR function to get a string that can be displayed.
To get the "filtering" you want, don't do a comparison to a string literal. Instead, do the comparison to an expression that has DATE datatype.
You can use the Oracle TO_DATE function. And you don't want to rely on setting of NLS_DATE_FORMAT, explicitly specify the format model as the second argument to the function. For example:
DO THIS
where entity.lt_date >= TO_DATE('2000-01-01','YYYY-MM-DD')
DON'T DO THIS
It's also possible to specify the format model as the second argument to the TO_CHAR function.
where TO_CHAR(entity.lt_date,'YYYY-MM-DD') >= '2001-01-01'
But you don't want to do that because that's going to force Oracle to evaluate that expression on the left side for every flipping row in the table, so it has a string value to do the comparison. (That's true unless someone created a function-based index for you.) If you do the comparison on the bare column, using the TO_DATE on the literal side, Oracle can make effective use of an appropriate index (with lt_date as the leading column) to satisfy the predicate.

character_length Teradata SQL Assistant

I have to run column checks for data consistency and the only thing that is throwing off my code is checking for character lengths for dates between certain parameters.
SEL
sum(case when ( A.date is null or (character_length(A.date) >8)) then 1 else 0 end ) as Date
from
table A
;
The date format of the column is YYYY-MM-DD, and the type is DA. When I run the script in SQL Assistant, I get an error 3580 "Illegal use of CHARACTERS, MCHARACTERS, or OCTET_LENGTH functions."
Preliminary research suggests that SQL Assistant has issues with the character_length function, but I don't know how to adjust the code to make it run.
with chareter length are you trying to get the memory used? Becuase if so that is constant for a date field. If you are trying to get the length of the string representation i think LENGTH(A.date) will suffice. Unfortanatly since teradata will pad zeros on conversions to string, I think this might always return 10.
UPDATE :
Okay so if you want a date in a special 'form' when you output it you need to select it properly. In teradata as with most DBs Date are not store in strings, but rather as ints, counting days from a given 'epoch' date for the database (for example the epoch might be 01/01/0000). Each date type in teradata has a format parameter, which places in the record header instructions on how to format the output on select. By default a date format is set to this DATE FROMAT 'MM/DD/YYYY' I believe. You can change that by casting.
Try SELECT cast(cast(A.date as DATE FORMAT 'MM-DD-YYYY') as CHAR(10)) FROM A. and see what happens. There should be no need to validate the form of the dates past a small sample to see if the format is correct. The second cast forces the database to perform the conversion and use the format header specified. Other wise what you might see is the database will pass the date in a date form to SQL Assitant and sql assitant will perform the conversion on the application level, using the format specified in its own setting rather then the one set in the database.

Errors while trying to cast/convert VARCHAR to DATETIME in ANSI SQL

I have a column in a table where timestamps have been stored in VARCHAR format, but I need to compare these against a column of DATETIME values from another table to find time intervals, so I want to either cast or convert the VARCHAR timestamps to DATETIME. However, both casting and converting are giving me problems.
The format of the VARCHAR timestamp looks like this: "29/07/2012 01:53:36 +12".
Using the query:
SELECT CAST(event_timestamp AS datetime) FROM the_table
produces ERROR: date/time field value out of range: "29/07/2012 01:53:36 +12".
Using the query:
SELECT CONVERT(datetime, event_timestamp, 131) from the_table;
produces
ERROR: syntax error at or near ","
LINE 1: select CONVERT(datetime, event_timestamp, 131) from the_tab...
^ (note: this is pointing at the first comma).
The error with CONVERT actually happens even if you use a generic function such as getdate() for the data source. This db uses ANSI SQL-92 (or so I'm told). Could anyone please help me out with this?
This seems really painful, but the following should work:
select dateadd(hh, cast(right(tv, 3) as int),
CONVERT(datetime, left(tv, 10), 103)+CONVERT(datetime, substring(tv, 12, 8), 108)
)
from (select '29/07/2012 01:53:36 +12' as tv) t
I've never added datetime's before, but this just worked on SQL Server 2008.
Why can't SQL Server just support a flexible notation built around yyyy, mm, mmm, dd and so on?
The actual database is Aster Data, which is based on Postgres (as are most recent database engines). In this database, you would use to_timestamp(). See the documentation here http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/functions-formatting.html. The call would be something like:
to_timestamp(val, 'MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS tz') -- not sure if this gets the +12
There are no ANSI functions for date conversion, so each database does its own. Even string functions vary among databases (substr? substring? charindex? instr? location?), so there is no ANSI way to do this.
You are using the wrong syntax, try:
CONVERT(varchar(X), datetimeValue, 131)
Where X is the total number of characters desired.
You will then be able to search for a match with datetimeValue and event_timestamp, assuming each value share the same structure. This will allow you to match string against string.
If I'm not mistaken the standard (ANSI SQL) CAST operator always expect time/date/timstamp literals in ISO format ('YYYY-MM-DD')
But according to the manual for Teradata V12 (can't test it), the format of the CAST operator is
CAST(character_expression AS TIMESTAMP timestamp_data_attribute)
with date_data_attribute being a character value plus an optional FORMAT specifier.
So in your case this would probably be:
cast(event_timestamp AS TIMESTAMP FORMAT 'MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS Z');
I'm not entirely sure about the format definition though. You'll probably need to adjust that
Btw: CONVERT isn't a standard SQL function. It's SQL Server specific.