TIMESTAMP Error

Question

I get the following error :
ERROR at line 2:
ORA-01843: not a valid month
when I try to insert in a timestamp : '2000-03-23 10:13:54'
I have looked at TIMESTAMP format and it is set to : YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS
I am using Oracle 9i.
Is there a command I could use that would return what format my database is expecting for TIMESTAMP.
Thanks Tony

Answer 1

This is how you would do the parameter change (for DATE and TIMESTAMP datatypes), if not using explicit conversion, as shown in above examples:
SQL> create table t (a date, b timestamp) ;
Table created.
SQL> insert into t values ('2000-03-23 10:13:54', '2000-03-23 10:13:54') ;
insert into t values ('2000-03-23 10:13:54', '2000-03-23 10:13:54')
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01861: literal does not match format string
SQL> alter session set nls_date_format = 'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss' ;
Session altered.
SQL> insert into t values ('2000-03-23 10:13:54', '2000-03-23 10:13:54') ;
insert into t values ('2000-03-23 10:13:54', '2000-03-23 10:13:54')
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01843: not a valid month
SQL> alter session set nls_timestamp_format = 'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss' ;
Session altered.
SQL> insert into t values ('2000-03-23 10:13:54', '2000-03-23 10:13:54') ;
1 row created.
SQL>