TO_TIMESTAMP

Syntax

Description of the illustration to_timestamp.gif

Purpose

TO_TIMESTAMP converts char of CHAR, VARCHAR2, NCHAR, or NVARCHAR2 datatype to a value of TIMESTAMP datatype.

The optional fmt specifies the format of char. If you omit fmt, then char must be in the default format of the TIMESTAMP datatype, which is determined by the NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT initialization parameter. The optional 'nlsparam' argument has the same purpose in this function as in the TO_CHAR function for date conversion.

This function does not support CLOB data directly. However, CLOBs can be passed in as arguments through implicit data conversion.

See Also:

"Datatype Comparison Rules" for more information.

Examples

The following example converts a character string to a timestamp. The character string is not in the default TIMESTAMP format, so the format mask must be specified:

SELECT TO_TIMESTAMP ('10-Sep-02 14:10:10.123000', 'DD-Mon-RR HH24:MI:SS.FF')
   FROM DUAL;

TO_TIMESTAMP('10-SEP-0214:10:10.123000','DD-MON-RRHH24:MI:SS.FF')
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
10-SEP-02 02.10.10.123000000 PM