TO_CHAR function in oracle to convert a date or number to the string format

This explains how to convert the the given date or integer values to strings.

There is function by the name, TO_CHAR which is used convert the given date or numeric values to the string format.

Syntax: TO_CHAR (n, [format], [NlsLang])

Here, n is the numeric or date value that’s need to be converted to the string format, format is the format that n needs to presented in,  and NlsLang is the nls languageused to convert the n to a string. The last two parameters are optional here.

Valid formats are as follows:

YEAR       Year, spelled out
YYYY       4-digit year
YYY
YY
Y           Last 3, 2, or 1 digit(s) of year.
IYY
IY
I           Last 3, 2, or 1 digit(s) of ISO year.
IYYY       4-digit year based on the ISO standard
Q           Quarter of year (1, 2, 3, 4; JAN-MAR = 1).
MM       Month (01-12; JAN = 01).
MON       Abbreviated name of month.
MONTH   Name of month, padded with blanks to length of 9 characters.
RM       Roman numeral month (I-XII; JAN = I).
WW       Week of year (1-53) where week 1 starts on the first day of the year and continues to the seventh day of the year.
W          Week of month (1-5) where week 1 starts on the first day of the month and ends on the seventh.
IW      Week of year (1-52 or 1-53) based on the ISO standard.
D          Day of week (1-7).
DAY      Name of day.
DD      Day of month (1-31).
DDD      Day of year (1-366).
DY          Abbreviated name of day.
J          Julian day; the number of days since January 1, 4712 BC.
HH      Hour of day (1-12).
HH12     Hour of day (1-12).
HH24      Hour of day (0-23).
MI          Minute (0-59).
SS          Second (0-59).
SSSSS Seconds past midnight (0-86399).
FF          Fractional seconds.


Ex1: SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'FMMonth DD, YYYY') FROM dual;
This returns “May 26, 2010”

Ex2: SELECT TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'MON DDth, YYYY') FROM dual;
This returns “MAY 26TH, 2010”