SQL: Convert varchar to date

Question

I have the following varchar type variable that I need to convert to date:

2019-07-24T13:52:04

When I do the following select:

SELECT TO_CHAR(TO_DATE(createddt,'YYYY-MM-DD T HH:MM:SS'), 'YYYY-MM-DD T HH:MM:SS')
FROM tbl$orders;

it gives me an error message:

date format not recognized.

How to convert this varchar to date?

Answer 1

I am going to speculate that you are using Oracle because it has to_date() and in Oracle, the date data type has a time component.

This then works:

select to_date('2019-07-24T13:52:04', 'YYYY-MM-DD"T"HH24:MI:SS')
from dual;

Answer 2

Is that what are you looking for

SELECT TO_DATE(REPLACE('2019-07-24T13:52:04', 'T', ' '), 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS')
FROM Dual;

Answer 3

Actually, Date format in Oracle is defined by NLS_DATE_FORMAT and you need to set it according to your requirement.

You are not able to see the letter T as your NLS_DATE_FORMAT is not set like that way.

You can try the following example for your problem:

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'YYYY-MM-DD"T"HH24:MI:SS'; -- setting the date format to be displayed at the session level

SELECT
    TO_DATE('2019-07-24T13:52:04', 'YYYY-MM-DD"T"HH24:MI:SS')
FROM
    DUAL; -- Your query

Also, Please read about NLS_DATE_FORMAT from oracle documentation. It is really needed to understand how dates are stored and how it is displayed in oracle.

Cheers!!