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Setting Dates and Time Parameters

Establishing a Globalization Support Environment

6-12 Oracle Database 2 Day Developer's Guide

ALTER SESSION SET NLS_TERRITORY=AMERICA;

Setting Date and Time Parameters

You can control the display of the date and time, allowing different conventions for
displaying the hour, day, month, and year based on the local formats. For example, in
the United Kingdom, the date is displayed using the

DD/MM/YYYY

format, while

China commonly uses the

YYYY-MM-DD

format.

Using Date Formats

You can use several different date formats, as shown in the following table.

To use the NLS2008FORMAT parameter:

The

NLS2008FORMAT

parameter defines the default date format to use with the

TO_CHAR

and

TO_DATE

functions. The

NLS_TERRITORY

parameter determines the

default value of the

NLS2008FORMAT

parameter. The value of

NLS2008FORMAT

can be any valid date format model. For example:

NLS2008FORMAT = "MM/DD/YYYY"

To add string literals to the date format, enclose the string literal with double
quotation marks. Note that when double quotation marks are included in the date
format, the entire value must be enclosed by single quotation marks. For example:

NLS2008FORMAT = '"Date: "MM/DD/YYYY'

The Oracle default date format may not always correspond to the cultural-specific
convention used in a given territory. You can use the short date and long date format
in SQL, using the

'DS'

and

'DL'

format models, respectively, to obtain dates in

localized formats. The following example shows the use of the short and long date
formats.

See Also:

Oracle Database Reference for more information on the

NLS_

TERRITORY

parameter

Using the NLS_LANGUAGE Parameter

on page 6-9

Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for locale information,
including supported languages and territories

See Also:

Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide for information about
date/time data types and time zone support

Oracle Database SQL Language Reference for information about date
and time formats

Country

Description

Example

Estonia

dd.mm.yyyy

28.02.2005

Germany

dd.mm.rr

28.02.05

China

yyyy-mm-dd

2005-02-28

dd/mm/yyyy

28/02/2005

U.S.

mm/dd/yyyy

02/28/2005