TO_DATE processing

From: Gautam H. Mudunuri <gmudunuri_at_informatica.com>
Date: 1998/09/27
Message-ID: <6umtd8$adl@newss.informatica.com>#1/1

Hi,

The Oracle server manual describes the default behavior when 'FX' (format exact) is not specified to to_date. It says:

Without FX, punctuation and quoted text in the character argument need only match the length and position of the corresponding parts in the format model.
Without FX, extra blanks in the character argument are ignored.

The above two statements do not describe the behavior in enough detail. I've tried various examples to figure out Oracle's to_date algorithm. In some cases a space in the character argument matches a punctuation in the format argument. In other cases it does not. All this is confusing! Is there some other documentation or other FAQ resource that explains this algorithm more clearly?

Please reply by email or CC me on your reply-post.

Thanks in advance,
-Gautam

gmudunuri_at_informatica.com Received on Sun Sep 27 1998 - 00:00:00 CDT