how to convert date into month number?

Question

I have a column Month in my table. The month name and date are stored in this month column like

Month    
01-JAN-12 
02-FEB-12 

and so on.

How do I convert the DATE into month number such as

Month
1 
2 

etc.

Answer 1

select 
to_char(to_date('01-JAN-12','dd-mon-yy'),'mm') from dual;

Answer 2

Extract works perfectly for this

EXTRACT extracts and returns the value of a specified datetime field

with fullYear as(
  select (to_date('01-jan-12') + 29*level) dte
    from dual
  connect by level <= 12
  )

select extract(month from dte) month, dte from fullYear ;

gives you

MONTH       DTE
1           January, 30 2012 00:00:00+0000
2           February, 28 2012 00:00:00+0000
3           March, 28 2012 00:00:00+0000
4           April, 26 2012 00:00:00+0000
5           May, 25 2012 00:00:00+0000
6           June, 23 2012 00:00:00+0000
7           July, 22 2012 00:00:00+0000
8           August, 20 2012 00:00:00+0000
9           September, 18 2012 00:00:00+0000
10          October, 17 2012 00:00:00+0000
11          November, 15 2012 00:00:00+0000
12          December, 14 2012 00:00:00+0000