TO_DATE function
TO_DATE converts a date represented by a character string to a DATE data type.
Syntax
TO_DATE (date_str)
TO_DATE (date_str, format)
Arguments
- date_str
-
A date string or a data type that can be cast into a date string.
- format
-
A string literal that matches Spark's datetime patterns. For valid datetime patterns, see Datetime Patterns for Formatting and Parsing
.
Return type
TO_DATE returns a DATE, depending on the format value.
If the conversion to format fails, then an error is returned.
Examples
The following SQL statement converts the date 02 Oct 2001 into a date
data type.
select to_date('02 Oct 2001', 'dd MMM yyyy');to_date ------------ 2001-10-02 (1 row)
The following SQL statement converts the string 20010631 to a
date.
select to_date('20010631', 'yyyyMMdd');
The following SQL statement converts the string 20010631 to a date:
to_date('20010631', 'YYYYMMDD', TRUE);
The result is a null value because there are only 30 days in June.
to_date ------------ NULL
