Data Type Formatting Functions

Applies to: ✅ Data Cloud SQL ✅ Tableau Hyper API

The formatting functions provide a set of tools that convert data types to formatted strings and formatted strings to specific data types. The first argument is the value to be formatted, and the second argument is a template that defines the output or input format.

Formatting conversion functions:

Function	Description	Example
to_char(timestamp, text) → text	convert timestamp to string	to_char(current_timestamp, 'HH12:MI:SS')
to_char(interval, text) → text	convert interval to string	to_char(interval '15h 2m 12s', 'HH24:MI:SS')
to_date(text, text) → date	convert string to date	to_date('05 Dec 2000', 'DD Mon YYYY')
to_timestamp(text, text) → timestamp with time zone	convert string to timestamp	to_timestamp('05 Dec 2000', 'DD Mon YYYY')

to_timestamp and to_date handle input formats that simple casting can’t convert. For most standard date/time formats, cast the source string to the required data type without to_timestamp or to_date.

In a to_char output template string, certain patterns are recognized and replaced with appropriately formatted data based on the given value. Any text that is not a template pattern is copied verbatim. Similarly, in an input template string for the other functions, template patterns identify the values to be supplied by the input data string. If there are characters in the template string that aren’t template patterns, the corresponding characters in the input data string are skipped.

The template patterns available for formatting date and time values are:

Pattern	Description
HH	hour of day (01-12)
HH12	hour of day (01-12)
HH24	hour of day (00-23)
MI	minute (00-59)
SS	second (00-59)
MS	millisecond (000-999)
US	microsecond (000000-999999)
SSSS	seconds past midnight (0-86399)
AM, am, PM or pm	meridiem indicator (without periods)
A.M., a.m., P.M. or p.m.	meridiem indicator (with periods)
Y,YYY	year (4 or more digits) with comma
YYYY	year (4 or more digits)
YYY	last 3 digits of year
YY	last 2 digits of year
Y	last digit of year
IYYY	ISO 8601 week-numbering year (4 or more digits)
IYY	last 3 digits of ISO 8601 week-numbering year
IY	last 2 digits of ISO 8601 week-numbering year
I	last digit of ISO 8601 week-numbering year
BC, bc, AD or ad	era indicator (without periods)
B.C., b.c., A.D. or a.d.	era indicator (with periods)
MONTH	full upper case English month name (blank-padded to 9 chars)
Month	full capitalized English month name (blank-padded to 9 chars)
month	full lower case English month name (blank-padded to 9 chars)
MON	abbreviated upper case English month name (3 chars)
Mon	abbreviated capitalized English month name (3 chars)
mon	abbreviated lower case English month name (3 chars)
MM	month number (01-12)
DAY	full upper case English day name (blank-padded to 9 chars)
Day	full capitalized English day name (blank-padded to 9 chars)
day	full lower case English day name (blank-padded to 9 chars)
DY	abbreviated upper case English day name (3 chars)
Dy	abbreviated capitalized English day name (3 chars)
dy	abbreviated lower case English day name (3 chars)
DDD	day of year (001-366)
IDDD	day of ISO 8601 week-numbering year (001-371; day 1 of the year is Monday of the first ISO week)
DD	day of month (01-31)
D	day of the week, Sunday (1) to Saturday (7)
ID	ISO 8601 day of the week, Monday (1) to Sunday (7)
W	week of month (1-5) (the first week starts on the first day of the month)
WW	week number of year (1-53) (the first week starts on the first day of the year)
IW	week number of ISO 8601 week-numbering year (01-53; the first Thursday of the year is in week 1)
CC	century (2 digits) (the twenty-first century starts on 2001-01-01)
J	Julian Day (integer days since November 24, 4714 BC at midnight UTC)
Q	quarter
RM	month in upper case Roman numerals (I-XII, I=January)
rm	month in lower case Roman numerals (i-xii, i=January)
TZ	upper case time-zone abbreviation (only supported in to_char)
tz	lower case time-zone abbreviation (only supported in to_char)
TZH	time-zone hours
TZM	time-zone minutes
OF	time-zone offset from UTC (only supported in to_char)

Modifiers can be applied to any template pattern to alter its behavior. For example, FMMonth is the Month pattern with the FM modifier. The modifier patterns for date/time formatting are:

Modifier	Description	Example
FM prefix	fill mode (suppress leading zeroes and padding blanks)	FMMonth
TH suffix	upper case ordinal number suffix	DDTH, e.g., 12TH
th suffix	lower case ordinal number suffix	DDth, e.g., 12th

Usage notes for date/time formatting:

• FM suppresses leading zeroes and trailing blanks that are added to make the output of a pattern fixed-width. FM modifies only the next specification and repeated FM modifiers switch fill mode on and off.

• Text in to_char templates is output literally. You can put a substring in double quotes to force it to be interpreted as literal text even if it contains template patterns. For example, in '"Hello Year "YYYY', the YYYY is replaced by the year data, but the single Y in Year isn’t replaced. In to_timestamp and to_date, literal text and double-quoted strings skip the number of characters contained in the string. For example, "XX" skips two input characters.

• If you want to have a double quote in the output, precede it with a backslash. For example '\"YYYY Month\"'. Within a double-quoted string, a backslash causes the next character to be taken literally.

• In to_timestamp and to_date, the YYYY can't process a year with more than four digits. For example, the year 20000 to_date('200001131', 'YYYYMMDD') is interpreted as a four-digit year. Use a non-digit character or template after YYYY to process longer year values. Instead, use a non-digit separator after the year. For example, to_date('20000-1131', 'YYYY-MMDD') or to_date('20000Nov31', 'YYYYMonDD').

• In to_timestamp and to_date, the CC (century) field is accepted but ignored if there is a YYY, YYYY , or Y,YYY field. If CC is used with YY or Y, then the result is computed as that year in the specified century. If the century is specified but the year isn’t, the first year of the century is assumed.

• In to_timestamp and to_date, an ISO 8601 week-numbering date (as distinct from a Gregorian date) can be specified in one of two ways.

  • Year, week number, and weekday. For example, to_date('2006-42-4', 'IYYY-IW-ID') returns the date 2006-10-19. If you omit the weekday, it’s assumed to be one (Monday).

  • Year and day of year. For example, to_date('2006-291', 'IYYY-IDDD') also returns 2006-10-19.

  A date with a mixture of ISO 8601 week-numbering fields and Gregorian date fields returns an error.

  to_char can use a mixture of Gregorian and ISO week-numbering date fields, but values like IYYY-MM-DD yield mixed results near the start of the year.

• In to_timestamp, millisecond (MS) or microsecond (US) fields are used as the seconds digits after the decimal point. For example, to_timestamp('12.3', 'SS.MS') isn’t 3 milliseconds, it’s 300, because the conversion treats it as 12 + 0.3 seconds. So, for the format SS.MS, the input values 12.3, 12.30, and 12.300 specify the same number of milliseconds. To get 3 milliseconds, write 12.003, which the conversion treats as 12 + 0.003 = 12.003 seconds.

• to_char(..., 'ID') day of the week numbering matches the extract(isodow from ...) function, but to_char(..., 'D') doesn't match extract(dow from ...) day numbering.

• to_char(interval) formats HH and HH12 as shown on a 12-hour clock. For example, zero hours and 36 hours both output as 12. HH24 outputs the full hour value, which can exceed 23 in an interval value.

to_char examples: