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Re: GMT time?

From: Mike Burden <michael.burden_at_capgemini.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 10:36:28 +0100
Message-ID: <3713101A.F195A7CF@capgemini.co.uk>


You've picked up on one of my bugbears.

To answer your question first, I believe the only function that may be of use is NEW_TIME which has obviously been designed for the USA (or is it North America) Note I'm using 7 documentation here. This may do what you wish but I don't think it supports local time for USA. i.e. You have to know whether day light saving is required.

IMHO I don't believe much thought has gone into this from Oracle. If it has it doesn't show. They can't blame the base OS. They could put in the required functionality and then say the routines/functions are only supported on OS's that provide the base functionality to Oracle. On those that don't, the routines just fall back to some default process. I know NT has the required functionality and I'm sure modern Unix OS must be able to do it.

I'm still surprised by the number of systems/apps that can't cope with the clocks going back for day light saving. They just stop them for an hour.

The functions provided in Javascript are an example of a better approach.

I believe that all times should be stored in a time-zone independent format and converted to local time or to a time zone of choice by the to_char functions (to_date would also need adapting). NEW_TIME could then be extended to support a range of time-zones and make it useful.

I think Dates and Times are weak in Oracle and need bringing up to date. I have raised this before but don't seem to attract much interest. Oh well lets wait for Oracle 9. Unless of course it is in 8 and I've just missed it..

Peter Chan wrote:

> How can I select a date in GMT in an ORACLE select statement.
>
> Is there a date format that I have not seen before?
>
> Is it a init parameter? nls_territory?
>
> Can I alter my session?
>
> I just can't find it.
>
> Any help will be really appreciated!
>
> Thanks in advance.
Received on Tue Apr 13 1999 - 04:36:28 CDT

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