Oracle and Dates

Thread view:

Roedy Green - 25 Mar 2004 00:40 GMT

I say this about Oracle and dates in the Java glossary. Somebody
wrote and said it was not true. I did not generate this from first
hand experience. What is the truth?

Oracle SQL databases expect dates stored to be presented in UTC, yet
when you retrieve them they automatically convert to local time. This
is not what you want. A servlet's local time has no relation to the
final client's local time. Store dates as longs or ints to avoid
Oracle's foolish meddling.
--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

Reply to this Message

Ruud de Koter - 30 Mar 2004 08:53 GMT

Hi Roedy,

You wrote:

> I say this about Oracle and dates in the Java glossary. Somebody
> wrote and said it was not true. I did not generate this from first
[quoted text clipped - 5 lines]
> final client's local time. Store dates as longs or ints to avoid
> Oracle's foolish meddling.

It 'd be nice if your somebody would say what exactly isn't true. One point of
relevance, though, is that Oracle introduced a number of timestamp datatypes in
Oracle9i (I think), both with and without locale settings. That at least makes
the story more diverse. Unfortunately, I can not give you all the details, as I
don't know them myself. I would have to read up at
http://otn.oracle.com/pls/db92/db92.homepage.

Hope this helps,

Ruud.

PS. Compliments on your website. One of my favorites in case of Java issues.
Makes it a bit of a bummer I can not give you more detail.

> --
> Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
> Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
> See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

Signature

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ruud de Koter HP OpenView Software Business Unit
Senior Software Engineer IT Service Management Operation
Telephone: +31 (20) 514 15 89 Van Diemenstraat 200
Telefax : +31 (20) 514 15 90 PO Box 831
Telnet : 547 - 1589 1000 AV Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Email : ruud_dekoter@hp.com

internet: http://www.openview.hp.com/products/servicedesk
intranet: http://ovweb.bbn.hp.com/itservicemanager
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reply to this Message

Oracle and Dates

Free Magazines