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anumosesFlag for United States of America

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date function using last_day in oracle

The user will enter date parameters as start_date and end_date

format is MM/RRRR
eg start_date - 10/2013
     end_date - 10/2013

I want the end_date to be the last day of the month. I tried using last_day function. But did not get the right format. If the user enters 10/2013 for end_date it should convert to 31-oct-2013.

Thanks in advance.
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Sean Stuber

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select LAST_DAY(TO_DATE(SUBSTR('10/2013', 1, INSTR('10/2013', '/')) || '1' || SUBSTR('10/2013', INSTR('10/2013', '/')), 'MM/DD/YYYY')) from Dual;

HTH
Ashok
select last_day(to_date('10/2013','mm/yyyy')) from dual;

will also return in
31-OCT-13
format.

OCT will all be uppercase.
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ASKER

thanks
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Sean Stuber

ashok111,  both of your answers depend on implicit conversions

 last_day(to_date('10/2013','mm/yyyy'))   will not produce '31-oct-2013'  reliably - it doesn't for me because my default format isn't dd-MON-yyyy

note the difference: MON vs mon - that's why you got "OCT" in your output rather than the requested "oct"

your first query, requires a lot of work to but is essentially the same as your second query and hence, has the same output problem.
using to_date and to_char with explicit masks both IN and OUT is the only way to get reliable results.

your second query is essentially just the original post but without the required formatting
sdstuber,

Thanks for your excellent input.  I agree with you.

Ashok