Formatting Timestamp

Question

Hi,
I have 2 columns "START_TIME" and "END_TIME" with the datatype, TIMESTAMP in my table. I want to calculate the difference between 2 timestamps in my table, so I used a simple query:
select (start_time-end_time) from test where name='XYZ';
The above gives the answer in the format:
000000000 00:01:43.000000
I just want the Hours, Mins and the seconds and eliminate all the unnecessary '0'.
How can I do this?
Thanks!

Answer 1

You can use the extract function for such purposes:
SQL> select extract(second from current_timestamp) from dual;
EXTRACT(SECONDFROMCURRENT_TIMESTAMP)
                            45.97092
SQL> select extract(minute from current_timestamp) from dual;
EXTRACT(MINUTEFROMCURRENT_TIMESTAMP)
                                   3
SQL>  select extract(hour from current_timestamp) from dual;
EXTRACT(HOURFROMCURRENT_TIMESTAMP)
                                14