Getting an error in this select

Question

Hi,
i am getting an error on this select
select add_months(to_date('31-MAR-'||'to_char(to_date('31-MAR-2011')','YYYY'))-12) from dual
Kindly help !!!

Answer 1

Your format-codes are wrong and sometimes missing.
Please try this:
select add_months(to_date('31-MAR-'||to_char(  to_date('31-MAR-2011','DD-MON-YYYY'),'YYYY'),'DD-MON-YYYY'),-12) from dual;I did correct it, but it is not nice code. Why do you use the same constant value (31-MAR) twice? The second is only for extracting the year. You could do the same with this:
select add_months(to_date('31-MAR-2011','DD-MON-YYYY'),-12) from dual;Keep in mind: There is a dependency of the setting of NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE in this code. NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE should be english for you code.
For example if NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE is GERMAN the code for march will be 'MRZ' instead of 'MAR'.
The following code would be language independent:
select add_months(to_date('31-03-2011','DD-MM-YYYY'),-12) from dual;Edited by: hm on 11.09.2011 22:51