Oracle date question

if p_start_date and p_end_date are already dates, remove the TO_CHAR conversion, as it will "incorrect" results, from "human" point of view.

see this article to explanations:
https://www.experts-exchange.com/Database/Miscellaneous/A_1499-DATE-and-TIME-don%27t-be-scared-and-do-it-right-the-first-time.html

if really you wanted to use TO_CHAR , then with a format like YYYYMMDD , YYYY-MM-DD , YYYY/MM/DD or the like, otherwise the "comparison" will not work according to the "values" of dates.

if you do DD/MM/YYYY or MM/DD/YYYY, it will first compar the months and days values before comparing the year values, as the resulting string is no longer a "date".

hope this clarifies

First, should you be using to_char?

Assuming to_date is correct, I just make sure I get them in the right order and I don't have to worry about stopping the report:

Use MIN for the left side and MAX for the right side.

min(to_date(:p_start_date, 'MM/DD/YYYY'),to_date(:p_end_date, 'MM/DD/YYYY'))

and

max(to_date(:p_start_date, 'MM/DD/YYYY'),to_date(:p_end_date, 'MM/DD/YYYY'))

you mean the user can pick any year they want but they must start on Jan 1 and end on Dec 31?

if so,  then change the prompt to only ask for the year.  Don't make them enter extra values that only serve to add error conditions.

Anumoses, you have got to start treating dates as dates and not characters if you are going to performa any kind of date math. With character data 12/31/2013 is greater than 01/31/2014, which results in inaccurate comparisons.

If you let the user just pick the year, you could "parse" it like this for your query needed in your report:

select trunc(to_date('2013', 'yyyy'), 'Y') first_day_of_year,
       add_months(trunc(to_date('2013', 'yyyy'), 'Y'), 12) - 1 last_day_of_year
  from dual;

Select allOpen in new window

whereas '2013' should be replaced with the appropriate parameter ;-)

Apart from that, I totally agree with awking00: do NOT treat dates as strings in scenarios like yours!

you mean the user can pick any year they want but they must start on Jan 1 and end on Dec 31?

if so,  then change the prompt to only ask for the year.  Don't make them enter extra values that only serve to add error conditions.

I cant ask only year. Since the report has to be run on the day and month also. This gives the user a graph for the date range.

The message I am trying to give the user is here

The start date and end date has to be within the same year range.

thanks