What is the Oracle date formatting mask for time zones?

Question

I need to insert a date format from an outside source which includes the three letter code for time zone, but the TZD formatting mask does not seem to work.

Answer 1

Date columns don't have timezone as an option. You'd have to create the column as data type TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONEorTIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE, and besides, the TO_DATE function doesn't understand the TIME ZONE format mask you're applying.

SQL> CREATE TABLE T
  2  (DT DATE,
  3   TS TIMESTAMP,
  4   TSTZ TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE,
  5   TSLTZ TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE);

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO T (TSLTZ) VALUES 
  2  (to_timestamp_tz('Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:37:00 EST','DY, DD Mon YYYY HH24:MI:SS TZD'))
  3  /

1 row created.

SQL> INSERT INTO T (TSTZ) VALUES 
  2  (to_timestamp_tz('Thu, 18 Feb 2010 08:37:00 EST','DY, DD Mon YYYY HH24:MI:SS TZD'))
  3  /

1 row created.

Answer 2

If timezone is not relevant for you, just strip it from the string using SUBSTR function and insert as in your second example.