[Oracle] Use to_char to format date column

Question

I have two column, ISSUE_DATE & DUE_DATE, with date data type.

But I only new YYYYMM not YYYYMMDD in report, how to format them?

Answer
We can use TO_CHAR to fulfill this requirement.

The to_char syntax is:

TO_CHAR( value, [ format_mask ], [ nls_language ] )

• value can either be a number or date that will be converted to a string.
• format_mask is optional. This is the format that will be used to convert value to a string.
• nls_language is optional. This is the nls language used to convert value to a string.

Example.

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SELECT ID, DUE_DATE, TO_CHAR( DUE_DATE, 'YYYYMM') FORMATED_DUE_DATE, ISSUE_DATE, TO_CHAR( ISSUE_DATE, 'YYYYMM') FORMATED_ISSUE_DATE FROM ISSUE_MAIN

Reference
[1] http://www.techonthenet.com/oracle/functions/to_char.php