Oracle TO_DATE Function Explained with Examples

https://www.databasestar.com/oracle-to_date/
The Oracle TO_DATE function is one of the most useful conversion functions in Oracle. It can be a little confusing though.

The TO_DATE function is used to convert a character value to a date value.

You can use it to convert a string that is in the format of a date, into a date data type.

Why would you use this?

Converting a character to a date is helpful if you want to insert a date into a column in a table. Being specific about the format (explicit) is better than assuming the conversion will be done for you (implicit).

This TO_DATE function only converts to a DATE data type. If you want to convert to the other datetime data types, you’ll have to use other functions such as TO_TIMESTAMP or TO_TIMESTAMP_TZ.

The syntax for this function is:

TO_DATE(charvalue [, format_mask [, nls_date_language]])

The parameters for this function are:

Charvalue: This is the character value that you want to convert to a date. It’s the main input of the function.
Format_mask: This is the format that the input value, the charvalue, is in. This is used to help convert your character value into a date, as your character may be in a different format to the default.
Nls_date_language: this is used to determine how the output is displayed.

For more information about the Oracle TO_DATE function, including all of the SQL shown in this video and the examples, read the related article here:

https://www.databasestar.com/oracle-to_date/