Useful Date and Time Functions in PL/SQL

Date and Time Function formats are different various database. we are going to discuss most common functions used in Oracle database. The function SYSDATE returns 7 bytes of data, which includes:

• Century
• Year
• Month
• Day
• Hour
• Minute
• Second

1. Extract(): Oracle helps you to extract Year, Month and Day from a date using Extract() Function.

• Example-1: Extracting Year: 

SQL

SELECT SYSDATE AS CURRENT_DATE_TIME, EXTRACT(Year FROM SYSDATE) AS ONLY_CURRENT_YEAR
FROM Dual

• Output:

CURRENT_DATE_TIME	ONLY_CURRENT_YEAR
05.Feb.2019 07:29:24	2019

• Explanation: Useful to retrieve only year from the System date/Current date or particular specified date.
• Example-2: Extracting Month: 

SQL

SELECT SYSDATE AS CURRENT_DATE_TIME, EXTRACT(Month FROM SYSDATE) AS ONLY_CURRENT_MONTH
FROM Dual

• Output:

CURRENT_DATE_TIME	ONLY_CURRENT_MONTH
05.Feb.2019 07:29:24	Feb

• Explanation: Useful to retrieve only month from the System date/Current date or particular specified date.
• Example-3: Extracting Day: 

SQL

SELECT SYSDATE AS CURRENT_DATE_TIME, EXTRACT(Day FROM SYSDATE) AS ONLY_CURRENT_DAY
FROM Dual

• Output:

CURRENT_DATE_TIME	ONLY_CURRENT_DAY
05.Feb.2019 07:29:24	5

• Explanation: Useful to retrieve only day from the System date/Current date or particular specified date.

2. ADD_MONTHS (date, n): Using this method in PL/SQL you can add as well as subtract number of months(n) to a date. Here ‘n’ can be both negative or positive.

• Example-4:

SQL

SELECT ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE, -1)  AS PREV_MONTH, SYSDATE AS CURRENT_DATE,
                                 ADD_MONTHS(SYSDATE, 1) as NEXT_MONTH
FROM Dual

• Output:

PREV_MONTH	CURRENT_DATE	NEXT_MONTH
02.Jan.2019 09:15:46	02.Feb.2019 09:15:46	02.Mar.2019 09:15:46

• Explanation: ADD_MONTHS function have two parameters one is date, where it could be any specified/particular date or System date as current date and second is ‘n’, it is an integer value could be positive or negative to get upcoming date or previous date.

3. LAST_DAY(date): Using this method in PL/SQL you can get the last day in the month of specified date.

• Example-5:

SQL

SELECT SYSDATE AS CURRENT_DATE, LAST_DAY(SYSDATE) AS LAST_DAY_OF_MONTH,
                                LAST_DAY(SYSDATE)+1 AS FIRST_DAY_OF_NEXT_MONTH
FROM Dual

• Output:

CURRENT_DATE	LAST_DAY_OF_MONTH	FIRST_DAY_OF_NEXT_MONTH
02.Feb.2019 09:32:00	28.Feb.2019 09:32:00	01.Mar.2019 09:32:00

• Explanation: In above example, we are getting current date using SYSDATE function and last date of the month would be retrieved using LAST_DAY function and this function be also helpful for retrieving the first day of the next month.
• Example-6: Number of Days left in the month 

SQL

SELECT SYSDATE AS CURRENT_DATE, LAST_DAY(SYSDATE) - SYSDATE AS DAYS_LEFT_IN_MONTH
FROM Dual

• Output:

CURRENT_DATE	DAYS_LEFT_IN_MONTH
02.Feb.2019 09:32:00	26

4. MONTHS_BETWEEN (date1, date2): Using this method in PL/SQL you can calculate the number of months between two entered dates date1 and date2. if date1 is later than date2 then the result would be positive and if date1 is earlier than date2 then result is negative. Note: If a fractional month is calculated, the MONTHS_BETWEEN function calculates the fraction based on a 31-day month.

• Example-7:

SQL

SELECT MONTHS_BETWEEN (TO_DATE ('01-07-2003', 'dd-mm-yyyy'),
                       TO_DATE ('14-03-2003', 'dd-mm-yyyy')) AS NUMBER_OF_MONTHS
FROM Dual

• Output:

NUMBER_OF_MONTHS
3.58

• Explanation: Here date1 and date2 are not on the same day of the month that’s why we are getting the value in fractions, as well as date1 is later than date2 so the resulting value is in integers. Entered date should be in particular date format, that is the reason of using TO_DATE function while comparison within MONTHS_BETWEEN function. Let’s select the number of months an employee has worked for the company.
• Example-8:

SQL

SELECT MONTHS_BETWEEN (SYSDATE, DATE_OF_HIRE) AS NUMBER_OF_MONTHS
FROM Employees

• Input:

SYSTEM_DATE	DATE_OF_HIRE
02-02-2019	31-10-2017
02-02-2019	03-12-2017
02-02-2019	24-09-2018
02-02-2019	22-12-2016
02-02-2019	18-06-2018

• Output:

NUMBER_OF_MONTHS
15.064
13.967
4.290
25.354
7.483

5. NEXT_DAY(date, day_of_week): It will return the upcoming date of the first weekday that is later than the entered date.It has two parameters first date where, system date or specified date can be entered; second day of week which should be in character form.

• Example-9:

SQL

SELECT NEXT_DAY(SYSDATE, 'SUNDAY') AS NEXT_SUNDAY
FROM Dual

• Output:

NEXT_SUNDAY
17-FEB-2019

• Explanation: It will help to provide the next upcoming date corresponding to the day, return type is always DATE regardless of datatype date. The second parameter must be a day of the week either full name or abbreviated.