Question

I am trying to check add the following constraint but Oracle returns the error shown below.

ALTER TABLE Table1
ADD (CONSTRAINT GT_Table1_CloseDate
CHECK (CloseDate > SYSDATE),
CONSTRAINT LT_Table1_CloseDate
CHECK (CloseDate <= SYSDATE + 365)),
CONSTRAINT GT_Table1_StartDate
CHECK (StartDate > (CloseDate + (SYSDATE + 730))));

Error:

Error report:
SQL Error: ORA-02436: date or system variable wrongly specified in CHECK constraint
02436. 00000 -  "date or system variable wrongly specified in CHECK constraint"
*Cause:    An attempt was made to use a date constant or system variable,
           such as USER, in a check constraint that was not completely
           specified in a CREATE TABLE or ALTER TABLE statement.  For
           example, a date was specified without the century.
*Action:   Completely specify the date constant or system variable.
           Setting the event 10149 allows constraints like "a1 > '10-MAY-96'",
           which a bug permitted to be created before version 8.

Answer 1

A check constraint, unfortunately, cannot reference a function like SYSDATE. You would need to create a trigger that checked these values when DML occurs, i.e.

CREATE OR REPLACE TRIGGER trg_check_dates
  BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE ON table1
  FOR EACH ROW
BEGIN
  IF( :new.CloseDate <= SYSDATE )
  THEN
    RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR( -20001, 
          'Invalid CloseDate: CloseDate must be greater than the current date - value = ' || 
          to_char( :new.CloseDate, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' ) );
  END IF;
  IF( :new.CloseDate > add_months(SYSDATE,12) )
  THEN
    RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR( -20002, 
         'Invalid CloseDate: CloseDate must be within the next year - value = ' || 
         to_char( :new.CloseDate, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' ) );
  END IF;
  IF( :new.StartDate <= add_months(:new.CloseDate,24) )
  THEN
    RAISE_APPLICATION_ERROR( -20002, 
          'Invalid StartDate: StartDate must be within 24 months of the CloseDate - StartDate = ' || 
          to_char( :new.StartDate, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' ) ||
          ' CloseDate = ' || to_char( :new.CloseDate , 'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS' ) );
  END IF;
END;