Invalid Date, 61-APR-2003, found in Oracle Date Field

From: Peter <no_email_at_no_email.com>
Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 10:43:52 +1000
Message-ID: <b8pqkq$je8$1@bunyip.cc.uq.edu.au>

RDBMS Version: 8.1.6.3
Operating System and Version: Solaris 2.7

One of our application users recently reported an invalid date that was stored in two of their tables. The date was 61-APR-2003 and it was in two different tables which led them to believe that it had been transferred from one table to another or they had both been inserted at the same time since both dates shared a common employee number.

I can't think of anyway that the database would allow an invalid date to be entered into a date field. However, I did find this in the Oracle Call Interface Programmer's Guide under External Data types.

"When you enter a date in binary format using the DATE external datatype, the database does not do consistency or range checking. All data in this format must be carefully validated before input."

I'm not sure if the above statement means that you can enter invalid dates into Oracle's internal DATE datatype since it is an external datatype.

Lastly, I realise that all 8.1.6 databases should be upgraded to at least 8.1.7, but due to application complications, this cannot be done yet. Received on Wed Apr 30 2003 - 19:43:52 CDT