How do I adjust the date time format for an output parameter in Oracle?

Question

I have an output parameter in oracle called outTime of type DATE. The format for this is set as yyyy-mm-dd and I need to be able to include the time from a table when I select into it.

I keep getting an error : date format picture ends before converting entire input string.

here is the insert into statement.

SELECT TO_CHAR(Table_Time, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') into outTime
FROM Table_One; 

the out parameter is declared as

outTime OUT DATE;

within a stored procedure in a package of other procedures.

I keep finding ways to set the format globally but I only need to set the format for this instance.

Thanks for any insight.

Answer 1

A DATE does not have a format. A string representation of a date has a format but a DATE does not.

If Table_Time is a VARCHAR2 (a string representation of a date) in the format yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss , then you would want to use TO_DATE to convert the string into a DATE (I assume that there is a single row in table_one in this example, otherwise the SELECT ... INTO will raise a no_data_found or a too_many_rows exception.

SELECT TO_DATE(Table_Time, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') 
  into outTime
  FROM Table_One; 

If Table_Time is a DATE , you would simply assign it to outTime

SELECT Table_Time
  into outTime
  FROM Table_One; 

When you want to display outTime , you'll need to convert the DATE to a string representation of a date (a VARCHAR2 ). At that point, you can use the TO_CHAR function.