Question

I want to make Oracle return dates using .NET’s Universal Sortable Time format so that I can consistently use this rather nice date/time format and so I can easily parse the result to a DateTime simply using “u” as the format:

// "u" is less unwieldy than "yyyy'-'MM'-'dd HH':'mm':'ss'Z'"
myDT = DateTime.ParseExact(oraString, "u", CultureInfo.InvariantCulture);

I can easily make Oracle return this format:

SELECT to_char(sysdate, 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS') || 'Z' udt FROM dual

However, the ‘Z’ added with concatenation would make the query unable to practically use a bind variable for the format:

someBindMethod("uformat", "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS"); // Hypothetical .NET/Oracle lib

-- No matter the format string, date/time will always end with 'Z'.
SELECT to_char(sysdate, :uformat) || 'Z' udt FROM dual

(Oracle complains if the ‘Z’ ends the format string)

How do I pass a bind string such that I can return the universal sortable time format, but can still use any other date format without altering the query?

Answer 1

(Q&A format self-answer): You can add arbitrary strings using double-quotes within the bind variable or within the single-quoted Oracle SQL text, e.g.:

SELECT to_char(sysdate, 'YYYY"SOMESTRING"') foo FROM dual
-- returns "2012SOMESTRING"

I wasn’t aware of this feature, and it was a little tricky to find at least in the context of my searches.

Now you can bind any format but still get the ‘Z’ ending on the universal format:

const string oraUniversalFormat = "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS\"Z\"";
const string anyOtherFormat = "YYYY"; // use later
someBindMethod("uformat", oraUniversalFormat);