How to bind DATE variables in SQL*Plus

Question

I have a stored procedure in a package that has a DATE OUT parameter
myPackage.myProcedure( outDate OUT DATE )
I am trying to test this from SQL*Plus
How do I specify a Bind variable for the outDate? The VARIABLE command does not allow DATE types?
If this was a CHAR type I could have done
VARIABLE myChar CHAR
BEGIN
myPackage.myProcedure( :myChar )
END;
PRINT myChar
How do I do this with DATE data types instead? I am using Oracle 8.1.7.

Answer 1

you should use VARCHR2 type with the minimum length that can store a value defined by your NLS_DATE_FORMAT
string. The returned date will be converted to a VARCAHR2 type and the size and format will depend on
your NLS_DATE_FORMAT setting.
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SQL> variable dt VARCHAR2(20)
SQL> create or replace procedure ret_date(dt OUT DATE) is
2 begin
3 dt := SYSDATE ;
4 end ;
5 /
Procedure created.
SQL> exec ret_date(:dt) ;
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> print dt
DT
13-OCT-02
SQL> select sysdate from dual ;
SYSDATE
13-OCT-02
SQL> alter session set nls_date_format = 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS' ;
Session altered.
SQL> exec ret_date(:dt) ;
PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.
SQL> print dt
DT
13-OCT-2002 10:43:23
SQL>
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