Oracle equivalent to SQL function 'convert'

Question

For e.g in SQL I have:

CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), mydate, 120)
CONVERT(DECIMAL(18,2), cost)

Is there an equivalent for these in Oracle?

Answer 1

This in TSQL:

CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), mydate, 120)

...returns a string, so you should probably use TO_CHAR:

TO_CHAR(mydate, 'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss')

You'd use TO_DATE if the value is not already an Oracle DATE data type, using the same format mask:

TO_DATE(mydate, 'yyyy-mm-dd hh24:mi:ss')

...or I would anyways, preferring explicit data type conversion when dealing with temporal data types.

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This in TSQL:

CONVERT(DECIMAL(18,2),cost)

...needs to use the CAST function:

CAST(cost AS DECIMAL(18,2))

Answer 2

You want to look at the built-in functions for PLSQL.

to_date('15/11/2010''dd/MM/yyyy')

and

to_number('1234.567','999.99')