How can I format a number as xxx-xx-xxxx?

Question

I am querying social security number data from a stored procedure and I would like to format it as a social security number in my stored procedure.

How can I format xxxxxxxxx like xxx-xx-xxxx in Oracle?

Answer 1

SSN formatting with TO_CHAR

SELECT TO_CHAR(012345678, '000g00g0000','nls_numeric_characters=.-') ssn from dual;

SSN
-----------
012-34-5678  

update: thanks to Gary for pointing out that the '0' format character should be used rather than the '9' to preserve leading zeroes.

Answer 2

you could also use the concat operator ||, which might be more readable.

 SUBSTR(data, 1, 3) ||'-'||SUBSTR(data, 4, 2)||'-'||SUBSTR(data, 6, 4)

Answer 3

And if you'd like to check if the number consists of 9 digits before applying the format, then regular expressions can be of help:

SQL> create table t (nr)
  2  as
  3  select 123456789 from dual union all
  4  select 987654321 from dual union all
  5  select null from dual union all
  6  select 1234567 from dual union all
  7  select 12345678901234 from dual
  8  /

Tabel is aangemaakt.

SQL> select nr
  2       , regexp_replace(nr,'(^[[:digit:]]{3})([[:digit:]]{2})([[:digit:]]{4}$)','\1-\2-\3') formatted_nr
  3    from t
  4  /

                                    NR FORMATTED_NR
-------------------------------------- --------------------
                             123456789 123-45-6789
                             987654321 987-65-4321

                               1234567 1234567
                        12345678901234 12345678901234

5 rijen zijn geselecteerd.

Regards, Rob.

Answer 4

CONCAT(CONCAT(CONCAT(CONCAT(SUBSTR(sspdata, 1, 3), '-'), SUBSTR(sspdata, 4, 2)), '-',) SUBSTR(sspdata, 6, 4))