What is the best way to escape non-format characters in Oracle's to_char?

Question

I am trying to print a date in a select statement, but I need to add a letter to the output:

to_char(date_updated, 'YYYY-MM-DDTHH:mm:ss')

Oracle does not like the T. I just want the T to be output like the colons and the dashes. Can I escape it with a backslash or something?

score 94 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 25 '09 at 23:47

94

You just need double-quotes around it:

to_char(date_updated, 'YYYY-MM-DD"T"HH:mm:ss')

answered Feb 25 '09 at 23:47

Chad Birch

Thanks for this - once again Stack Overflow has saved my bacon. – Darren Greaves Dec 08 '09 at 09:51
3

What to do if I want to escape a double quote(") ? – Rahul kalivaradarajalu Jan 19 '21 at 08:47
Maybe `'YYYY-MM-DD"""T"""HH:mm:ss'` - not tested – Wernfried Domscheit Sep 15 '22 at 20:24
Escape `"` with `\"`. Example `'YYYY-MM-DD\"HH:mm:ss\"'` → 2022-12-23 "12:46:06" – Alexi Theodore Dec 23 '22 at 20:46

1 Answers1