Case sensitive field in to_date function

Question

update "Ab_Order" set "OrderDate" = to_date("Order Date String", 'yyyy/mm/dd)
Here the OrderDate column is of type Date
"Order Date String" is varchar2. Iam trying to copy the data from "Order Date String" which contains data in this format '2011/04/24' to OrderDate column to perform some date functions
when I try to run this query it gives a error: ORA-01830: date format picture ends before converting entire input string
So I tried to run this query by creating a test table wit 2 columns : update testtable set column1 = to_date(field1, 'yyyy/mm/dd')
where column1 is date field and field1 is varchar2 and this worked.
So Iam assuming this is the problem with case sensitive fieldnames . As far as i know we should include case sensitive fields in double quotes. Is there anything else to do wit the to_Date function. Can anyone please let me know how to do that.

Answer 1

Hi,
Welcome the the forum!
882431 wrote:
update "Ab_Order" set "OrderDate" = to_date("Order Date String", 'yyyy/mm/dd)It looks like you're missing a single-quote right before the last ')'.
Here the OrderDate column is of type Date
"Order Date String" is varchar2. Iam trying to copy the data from "Order Date String" which contains data in this format '2011/04/24' to OrderDate column to perform some date functions
when I try to run this query it gives a error: ORA-01830: date format picture ends before converting entire input stringThat error occurs when when you have characters in the 1st argument that do not correspond to anything in the 2nd argument. For example:
TO_DATE ( '30-Aug-2011 12:00'
     , 'dd-Mon-yyyy'
     )In this example, TO_DATE doesn;t know what to do with the ' 12:00' at the end of the 1st argument. According to the 2nd arguemnt, there's only supposed to be 11 characters in the string. So it raises the ORA-01830 error.
So I tried to run this query by creating a test table wit 2 columns : update testtable set column1 = to_date(field1, 'yyyy/mm/dd')
where column1 is date field and field1 is varchar2 and this worked.
So Iam assuming this is the problem with case sensitive fieldnames . As far as i know we should include case sensitive fields in double quotes. Is there anything else to do wit the to_Date function. Can anyone please let me know how to do that.Case sensitive column names are a bad idea because they cause so amny problems, but I don't think this is one of those problems. It's more likely that you need to use SUBSTR (or some other string manipulation function) on "Order Date String" before using it in TO_DATE.
Whenever you have a problem, please post a little sample data (CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements, relevant columns only) from all tables, so people can re-create the problem and test their ideas.
Also post the results you want from that data, and an explanation of how you get those results from that data, with specific examples.
Always say which version of Oracle you're using.