SYSTIMESTAMP questions

Question

Some (hopefully) simple questions about SYSTIMESTAMP:
1. What data type does SYSTIMESTAMP return? That is, how would I declare a column that could store the value returned by SYSTIMESTAMP?
2. Using PL/SQL, is it possible to access the elements of a timestamp value? i.e., suppose I want the variable m to contain the minutes art of the current time and s to contain the seconds part. How would I write the expressions for h and m in terms of x?
x = SYSTIMESTAMP
h = ...???
m =...???
3. If I have the elements of a timestamp (i.e. a year, month, date, hour, minute, seconds, fractional seconds and time zone), is it possible to create a timestamp value with those values?
Thanks!

Answer 1

user10936714 wrote:
Some (hopefully) simple questions about SYSTIMESTAMP:
1. What data type does SYSTIMESTAMP return? That is, how would I declare a column that could store the value returned by SYSTIMESTAMP?TIMESTAMP(6) WITH TIME ZONE
You could also declare the column as just a TIMESTAMP or even a TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE
2. Using PL/SQL, is it possible to access the elements of a timestamp value? i.e., suppose I want the variable m to contain the minutes art of the current time and s to contain the seconds part. How would I write the expressions for h and m in terms of x?
x = SYSTIMESTAMP
h = ...???
m =...???
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1  select extract( hour from systimestamp ) hr,
  2         extract( minute from systimestamp ) min
  3*   from dual
SQL> /
        HR        MIN
        18          2
3. If I have the elements of a timestamp (i.e. a year, month, date, hour, minute, seconds, fractional seconds and time zone), is it possible to create a timestamp value with those values?
SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf
  1* select to_timestamp( '01-02-2003 12:34:56.7890','MM-DD-YYYY HH24:MI:SS.FF'
) ts from dual
SQL> /
TS
02-JAN-03 12.34.56.789000000 PMJustin