OracleCommand seems to convert literal dates - sql

I built a small query tool for Oracle using OracleCommand and OracleDataAdapter. Users just input a full query (no parameters), execute and the results are shown in a datagridview. So far so good, although I tried an invalid query, e.g.:
SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE dateColumn = '1-JAN-10'
This query is not valid SQL for Oracle. You have to use the to_date() function to compare with date literals. SQL developer also rejects it, but somehow my query tool just works. Does that mean my OracleCommand is a bit of a wizard here or am I doing something wrong? Also is there a way to omit this behavior because the purpose of the tool is testing queries, which should work always...
Thanks

The query may be valid for Oracle. You don't have to use to_date() if you give the date string in your session's date format, though it's generally better to do that anyway to avoid issues like this.
It sounds like you have a different NLS_DATE_FORMAT in your tool's environment to that in SQL Developer, or the session date format is being set implicitly by OracleCommand.
You can select value from nls_session_parameters where parameter = 'NLS_DATE_FORMAT' to see what it is from SQL*Plus and SQL Developer, and from your tool; and from nls_database_parameters to see which is overriding the database default.
Looks like your tool may have DD-MON-RR and you're expecting some other format elsewhere, but without checking those tables it's hard to say where you're using the database default and where you're overriding it at session level. I'd guess that is the DB default though and you have an override in your other environments.
From SQL Developer, try alter session set nls_date_format='DD-MON-RR'; and then re-run your invalid query - should work there too.

Related

Pulling a SQL Server date to be used in Oracle query within SSIS environment is ignored in the Oracle query

I am having trouble in my Oracle query that uses a variable stored in SSIS which has a date that is pulled from sql server.
I am using an execute sql task that simply gets a max date from a sql server table and stores it in a variable. E.g.
SELECT MAX(t.Date) FROM table t;
I then want to use that variable in my Oracle query which is an ADO.NET source connection. I noticed you can't parameterize in those connections and found the work around where you use the sql expression with your user variable in it. So now my Oracle source query looks something like this:
"SELECT DISTINCT t.* FROM table t WHERE TO_CHAR(t.LastUpdateDate, 'YYYY-MM-DD') > " + "'#[User::LastUpdateDate]'"
The query syntax itself is fine, but when I run it, it is pulling all rows and seems to be completely ignoring the where clause of the date.
I've tried removing the TO_CHAR from LastUpdateDate.
I've tried adding a TO_CHAR to my user variable #[User::LastUpdateDate].
I've tried using the CONVERSION() function from sql server on #[User::LastUpdateDate].
Nothing seems to work and the query just runs and pulls in all data as if I don't have the WHERE clause on the query.
Does anyone know how to rectify this issue or point out what I might be doing wrong?
Thank you for any and all help!
**EDIT:
My date being pulled from SQL Server is in this format: 2022-09-01 20:17:58.0000000
This is not an answer, just troubleshooting advice
You do not say what data type #[User::LastUpdateDate] is, I'll assume it's a datetime
Ideally all datetime data should be kept in datetime data types, then format becomes completely irrelevant. However since it's difficult to parameterise Oracle queries in SSIS, you have to concoct a string to be submitted. Now date format does become important.
On to something a little different, it is a very good habit performancewise, to not put functions around columns that you are searching on. This is called sargability - look it up.
Given these things, I suggest that you concoct your required SQL query bit by bit and troubleshoot.
First, format your date parameter as an Oracle date literal. Remember this is normally a bad and unecessary thing. We are only doing it because we have to concoct a SQL string.
So create another SSIS variable called strLastUpdateDate and put this hideous expression in it:
RIGHT("0" + (DT_STR,2,1252)DATEPART( "dd" , #[User::LastUpdateDate] ), 2) + '-' +
(DT_STR,3,1252)DATEPART( "mmm" , #[User::LastUpdateDate] ) + '-' +
(DT_STR,4,1252)DATEPART("yyyy" , #[User::LastUpdateDate] )
Yes this is ludicrously long code but it will turn your date variable into a Oracle string literal. You could simplify this by putting it into your original max query but lets not go there. Use whatever debugging technique you have to confirm that it works as expected.
Now you should be able to use this:
"SELECT t.*, '"+#[User::LastUpdateDate]+"' As MyStrDate FROM table t WHERE
t.LastUpdateDate > '" #[User::strLastUpdateDate] + "'"
You can try running that and see if it makes any difference. Make sure you use this https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/8828/how-do-you-show-sql-executing-on-an-oracle-database to monitor what is actually being submitted to Oracle.
This is all from memory and googling - I haven't done SSIS for many years now
I suspect after all this you may still have the same problem because I recall from many years having the same mysterious issue.

SQL Runner (Google Looker) change date format in query

This topic has been covered several times but I can't find a solution that applies to SQL Runner, which is the custom query portion of Google's Looker platform.
I am attempting to reformat a datetime SELECT statement from yyyy-mm-dd to mm-dd-yyyy.
Currently what I have is:
SELECT
CAST(shift.datetime AS DATE)
FROM table.a
This gives me the yyyy-mm-dd result but so far my efforts to CONVERT have been fruitless. It does not appear that SQL Runner supports the CONVERT command or I am utilizing it incorrectly.
Any thoughts on this one?
I believe sql runner is just gives us a way to directly access the db and it will not change any sql query while communicating with the db directly as long as the timezone of both explore as well as db matches.
Maybe something like this should work for your case
https://sql.tutorialink.com/convert-yyyymmdd-to-mm-dd-yyyy-in-snowflake/
lmk if the above works for your or not!

SQL: to_char alternative for Oracle AND SQL-Server

I have some sql statements, which i am using for Oracle. This sql statements are used by a programm from me.
I want to support Oracle and SQL-Server with my program without having different sql statements for Oracle and SQL-Server.
Which alternative can i use for the specific Oracle SQL-Statements:
to_char(FIELDNAME, 'YYYY')
to_char(FIELDNAME, 'YYYYMMDD')
to_char(FIELDNAME, 'DD.MM.YYYY')
The sql statements have to work for Oracle and SQL-Server.
Even if at a first glance the SQL implementation from two different vendors looks similar, when working with real life enterprise applications you will stumble upon a large number of differences, and I am only talking about SQL, when comparing PL/SQL with T-SQL there is hardly any resemblance left.
When trying to reduce the usage of two databases to only common functionality, you will loose a lot of their power, you could as well use a txt file on the file system.
One elegant solution, as someone already suggested, would be to leave the columns in the database as DATE data type and extract your data in the application code that stands above the database, if any. For example, in Java, you will map your database DATE columns to java.sql.Date no matter if that date comes from Oracle or from SQL Server.
Still, if you want to get your formatted data from the database, you could create separate columns that hold the formatted date, for example :
FIELDNAME | FIELDNAME_YYYY | FIELDNAME_YYYYMMDD | FIELDNAME_DDMMYYYY
I don't think there are common functions to do what you want. Oracle supports the ANSI standard extract() function for extracting date parts. SQL Server has separate functions for YEAR(), MONTH(), and DAY(). Oracle uses TO_CHAR(); SQL Server uses CONVERT().
One option is to define the functions YEAR(), MONTH(), and DAY() in Oracle and then use string concatenation (via the CONCAT()) function to combine the data. Or, write specific functions in each database for what you want to do. Or, perhaps, someone has implemented TO_CHAR() in SQL Server and you can grab the code from the web.
Finally i found a solution. Maybe its useful some other people too.
You can set the input format for a date...
Oracle: ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'DD.MM.YYYY'
SQL-Server: SET DATEFORMAT dmy

Select GetDate() via VB.net different then Select GetDate() via SSMS

When I Use the below code:
Dim cmd As New OdbcCommand("SELECT GETDATE()", oConn)
retVal = cmd.ExecuteScalar()
The resulting output is:
8/1/2013 10:10:39 AM
When I run the exact same query directly in Management Studio I get:
2013-08-01 10:10:39.317
When I check my computer settings versus the SQL Server settings they match.
Anyone know what I need to do to ensure it matches?
Specifically I am talking about the Date format difference.
If you want the date output with a specific string format, then you can use CONVERT() with a style number. For example:
SELECT CONVERT(CHAR(20), GETDATE(), 22),
CONVERT(CHAR(23), GETDATE(), 21);
Results:
-------------------- -----------------------
08/01/13 10:53:54 AM 2013-08-01 10:53:54.943
However, if you are using the date for things other than direct display, only apply that formatting when you are displaying it. For all other purposes it should remain a datetime type and should not be converted to a string.
As for the differences in the actual time value, it's not clear what problem you're talking about, but I suspect you simply ran these queries half an hour apart. If those were run at or around the same time, it looks like the server is half an hour fast - maybe it's in a different time zone or maybe it's just a lot of drift or someone not bothering to use a time service. Your application should never use the time / time zone of the client, especially if it's distributed - always use the time on the server.
Dates have no format. Format comes into play only when you convert dates to a string. The forma used depends on who does the conversion: the server or the client?
Your VB.NET query returns a date from the server and converts it to a string when you write it to the console, a form or whatever. VB.NET uses your programm's CurrentCulture, whose defaults come from the current user's regional settings.
When you display data in SSMS, an ISO format is used so there is no ambiguity when you edit the data.
When you compare date and string values in a query, either explicitly by converting a date to a string or implicitly because you just typed MyDate = '13/1/2013, a conversion is made using the column's collation. Collations are inheritted so the column's collation is the same as the database's collation.
Try this:
net time \\SERVER_NAME
Note: Obviously SERVER_NAME is the name of your SQL Server machine.
Do you see a 30 minute difference in the result of that call?
I looked deeper into the code and found that some enterprising fellow had added code to a line of SQL later in the process which forces DMY format on that query.
so the code in the VB is returning the proper Date on the app machine. Which means that there must be a difference between my computer and the app machine.
Another coder ran into the same issue and so there solution was to add the below code to the SQL that was pulling from the DB.
SET DATEFORMAT dmy
This forces the SQL to use DMY format... I removed this code Compiled and ran the EXE from the server machine and my issue dried up!
Thanks for everyone's help.

Can you explain this SQL injection?

The website i worked was recently attempted to be hacked by the following SQL injection script
boys' and 3=8 union
select 1,
concat(0x232425,ifnull(`table_name`,0x30),char(9),ifnull(`table_rows`,0x30), char(9),0x252423),
3,4,5,6,7,8,9
from `information_schema`.`tables`
where table_schema=0x62646B3032 limit 44,1 -- And '8'='8
This injection returned the mysql table name. This was reported by the error reporting system on that website and we managed to fix that part however I am not able to understand what does the above injection mean?
Anyone can explain this?
Penuel
They're using a select from the Information Schema views in mysql server :
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/information-schema.html
They use some clever hacks to rout out simple sql injection prevention techniques.
According to this the MySQL concat()
Returns the string that results from
concatenating the arguments. May have
one or more arguments. If all
arguments are nonbinary strings, the
result is a nonbinary string. If the
arguments include any binary strings,
the result is a binary string. A
numeric argument is converted to its
equivalent binary string form
So 0x232425 is converted to #$% which is simply added to the begining and end of the table_name field. Maybe just to make it easier for them to pull out the Table names later using Regex.
Later on the char(9) is equivalent to a tab as you can see here and is just there to format the output nicer.
The 3,4,5,6,7,8,9 is just there so that the columns match the boys table that they are performing the Union on.
This injection returned the mysql table name.
Do you mean that your website displayed the table name when you gave it this input, or that the query returns that when run from the mysql client? If it showed on your website, then the attacker has the ability to inject much more harmful queries. Check your data.