Date issue - month converting to date and date converting to month

Question

I've got some data in a text file for SQLLDR from an SQL SERVER.
The date columns in it are in YYYY-MM-DD format eg- 2011-01-03 00:00:00
but in oracle we are using MM-DD-RRRR.
Don't know why DD and MM are getting interchanged. Please help.
This is my control file for sqlldr:
LOAD DATA
INFILE 'F:\NV\Permits\SQLLDR\permits.txt'
REPLACE
INTO TABLE lot.p_permit
FIELDS Terminated by "~" TRAILING NULLCOLS
CP_PermitID  "TRIM (:CP_PermitID)",
CP_SubmitDate "to_date(to_date(substr(:CP_SubmitDate, 1,19),'RRRR-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'),'DD-MM-RRRR')",
CP_IssueDate "to_date(to_date(substr(:CP_IssueDate, 1,19),'RRRR-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'),'DD-MM-RRRR')")

Answer 1

You are converting date to date. First TO_DATE
to_date(substr(:CP_IssueDate, 1,19),'RRRR-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS')correctly converts first 19 characters of string CP_IssueDate to date. Now look what happens with second one. TO_DATE first argument is string. Since to_date(substr(:CP_IssueDate, 1,19),'RRRR-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') is date:
to_date(to_date(substr(:CP_SubmitDate, 1,19),'RRRR-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'),'DD-MM-RRRR')implictly converts to_date(substr(:CP_IssueDate, 1,19),'RRRR-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS') back to string using default date format and then converts it back to date using 'DD-MM-RRRR' format. Obviously if default date format is not 'DD-MM-RRRR' you will either get wrong date or an error. Anyway, use:
LOAD DATA
INFILE 'F:\NV\Permits\SQLLDR\permits.txt'
REPLACE
INTO TABLE lot.p_permit
FIELDS Terminated by "~" TRAILING NULLCOLS
CP_PermitID  "TRIM (:CP_PermitID)",
CP_SubmitDate "to_date(substr(:CP_SubmitDate,1,10),'YYYY-MM-DD')",
CP_IssueDate "to_date(substr(:CP_IssueDate,1,10),'YYYY-MM-DD')"
)SY.
Edited by: Solomon Yakobson on Aug 1, 2011 4:45 PM