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Home -> Community -> Usenet -> c.d.o.misc -> Re: Oracle Newbie - SQL question
The 'd' is the format mask that returns the Number of the day ( Sunday=1, Monday=2, etc)
Today ( when I posted this) is Wednesday so:
"Jack Straw" <jkstraw_no_spam__at_hotmail.com> wrote:
>Hi Daniel,
>
>Thank for you response. Your answer seems to make a bit more sense to me
>(or at least jive with my understanding of how the query executes)
>
>A couple question though (please correct me if I am making wrong
>assumptions):
>
>1. If by default Oracle says sunday =1 monday =2...etc for the purposes of
>ordering by date.
>
>How does Sunday -1 =Monday? Isn't that like 1-1=2?
>
>2. What does the 'd' represent.
>
>Sorry if I am asking a dumb question here :-) Thanks again!
>
>jon
>
>
>
>"Daniel Morgan" <dmorgan_at_exesolutions.com> wrote in message
>news:3D35A407.6B60BFCF_at_exesolutions.com...
>> Jack Straw wrote:
>>
>> > Hey everyone,
>> >
>> > Just getting my feet wet with Oracle and I have run into a question I
>was
>> > hoping to get some help with.
>> >
>> > I am currently studying for the Oracle SQL cert and came accross this
>> > question:
>> >
>> > "Display the last name, hire date and the day of the week on which the
>> > employee started. Label the column DAY. ORder the results by the day
>of
>> > the week starting with Monday"
>> >
>> > My question concerns the answer supplied in the text:
>> >
>> > "SELECT last_name, hire_date, TO_CHAR(hire_date,'fmDay')
>> > FROM employees
>> > ORDER by TO_CHAR(hire_date -1,'d')"
>> >
>> > I don't understand the ORDER BY clause.
>> >
>> > Specifically:
>> >
>> > 1) "hire_date -1"
>> > - My understanding is that Oracle's day 1 of a week is Sunday. It
>doesn't
>> > seem intuative to use "-1" to move a day forward? Am I misunderstanding
>> > something?
>> >
>> > 2) 'd'
>> > - What does this represent? I had assumed "day" but that substitution
>> > results in 'some other' weird grouping I don't understand. (ie. it
>groups
>> > all the days of the week but in no apparent order)
>> >
>> > Thanks in advance for any help!
>> >
>> > Jon
>>
>> It moves the value of Monday to 1 and the value of Sunday to 7.
>>
>> So the sort becomes Monday, Tuesday, .... Saturday, Sunday
>>
>> Daniel Morgan
>>
>
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