Question

I am trying to execute this insert statement into an oracle table but am getting an invalid number error. Oracle is pointing at the date as the issue. But I dont see the problem.

INSERT INTO DROPPER_VACATIONS 
VALUES (21111,
    to_char('2012-01-01','YYYY-MM-DD'),
    to_char('2012-01-01','YYYY-MM-DD'),
    to_char(sysdate,'YYYY-MM-DD'),
    'CRONUSER',
    to_char(sysdate,'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MI:SS AM'),
    'CRONUSER',
    NULL)

Answer 1

Those are not dates, but chars. You would need to_date to convert them to dates, but that would be silly, since you apparently need them as chars anyway.

Or did you mean to use to_date to convert them to dates? That would be wise, since it is better to store dates as actual dates rather than chars.