* What is a function?
* Types of functions
* Arithmetic functions
* Dual table
* Date arithmetic
* Date functions
* Summary
* Exercises
What is a function?
A function is similar to an operator in
operation. A function is a name that performs
a specific task. A function may or may
not take values (arguments) but it always returns a value as the result. If
function takes values then these values are to be given within parentheses
after the function name. The following is the general format of a function.
function [(argument-1, argument-2,...) ]
If the function doesn’t take any value then
function name can be used alone and even parentheses are not required.
Types of functions
Functions are classified based on the type of
data on which they perform the operation. The following are the different types
of functions available in Oracle.
* Arithmetic Functions.
* Date & Time functions.
* String functions.
* Conversion functions.
* Miscellaneous functions.
* Group functions.
Arithmetic functions perform take numeric data;
date functions take date type data and string functions take strings.
Conversion functions are used to convert the given value from one type to
another. Miscellaneous functions perform operations on any type of data. Group functions are used to perform
operations on the groups created by GROUP BY clause.
1.
Note: Group functions or aggregate
functions perform their operation on a group (a collection of rows). All the remaining functions are called as single-row functions
as they return a result for each row.
Arithmetic Functions
Arithmetic functions take numbers and perform
arithmetic operations. Table 1 lists the
arithmetic functions available in Oracle.
|
Function
|
Description
|
|
ABS(value)
|
Absolute value of the
given value.
|
|
CEIL(value)
|
Smallest integer
larger than or equal to value
|
|
FLOOR(value)
|
Largest integer
smaller than or equal to value
|
|
MOD(value,divisor)
|
Remainder of the
division between the value and divisor.
|
|
POWER(value,exponent)
|
Value is raised to
exponent.
|
|
ROUND(value[,precision])
|
Rounds value to
precision. Precision can be negative if rounding is to be done on the left of
the decimal point.
|
|
TRUNC(value[,precision])
|
Truncates instead of
rounding. Otherwise same as ROUND.
|
|
SQRT(value)
|
Square root of value.
|
|
SIGN(value)
|
Returns 1 if
value > 0, -1 if value <0, 0 if
value = 0
|
Table 1: Arithmetic
Functions.
The following are a few examples of arithmetic
functions.
select mod(10,4) from dual;
The above command displays 2 as the result as
the remainder of the division between 10 and 4 is 2.
ROUND and TRUNC functions
ROUND and TRUNC functions are used to round and
truncate the given number to the given number of digits (either on the right or
left of the decimal point). ROUND takes
the leftmost digit that is being lost and accordingly adds one to the rightmost
digit. TRUNC doesn’t take the leftmost digit into account. It just truncates
the given number to the given precision.
select round(1047.785,2), trunc(1047.785,2) from
dual;
The above command will display 1047.79 and
1047.78. This is because TRUNC doesn’t
take the digits being lost into account.
The following examples illustrate the result of
ROUND and TRUNC functions with positive and negative precision.
|
Function
|
Result
|
|
ROUND(1295.356,2)
|
1295.36
|
|
TRUNC(1295.356,2)
|
1295.35
|
|
ROUND(1295.356,0)
|
1295
|
|
ROUND(1285.356, -1)
|
1290
|
|
TRUNC(1285.356, -1)
|
1280
|
|
ROUND(1295,-2)
|
1300
|
When precision in ROUND is positive then
rounding takes place to the specified number of digits on the right of decimal
point. For example, if precision is 2 it means
round number to 2 digits on the right of the decimal point. When precision is negative; it means number is to
be rounded to the left of the decimal point. In both the cases if the leftmost
digit of the digits being lost is >=
5 then one is added to the rightmost digit of the digits that are retained.
In the example given above, ROUND (1285.356, -1)
will result in 1290. Because one digit on the left of decimal point is to
be set to zero, means 5 is replaced with 0. As the digit that is replaced with
zero (5 in this case) is >= 5 one is
added to digit on the left of it (8) to make it 9. So the result is 1290.
ROUND (1295,-2)
results in 1300. This is because
in 1295 two digits on the left of decimal point
are set to zeroes( 1200) and
as leftmost digit
out of digits that are set to zero is 9 one is added to 2, which is the
rightmost digit in the remaining
portion. This makes it 1300.
2.
Note: ROUND and TRUNC functions can also
be used with date data type. More on this later in this chapter.
CEIL & FLOOR functions
CEIL produces the smallest integer that is
greater than or equal to the given value. Whereas FLOOR is opposite of CEIL.
The following table illustrates the usage of these two related functions.
|
Function
|
Result
|
|
CEIL(1.3)
|
2
|
|
CEIL(2)
|
2
|
|
CEIL(-2.3)
|
-2
|
|
FLOOR(1.3)
|
1
|
|
FLOOR(2)
|
2
|
|
FLOOR(-2.3)
|
-3
|
DUAL
Table
This is a
table that is made available to every account in Oracle database. This table
contains one row and one column. This
table can be used with SELECT when result of the expression is to be displayed
only for once.
SQL>
describe dual
Name Null? Type
------------------------- -------- ----
DUMMY VARCHAR2(1)
For
example, to display the current system date the following SELECT can be used:
SQL>
select sysdate from dual;
SYSDATE
--------
24-AUG-01
As DUAL
table contains only one row, the result is displayed only for once.
The following example displays the course fee by
rounding it to thousands.
select ccode,name, round(fee,-3) “fee”
from courses;
CCODE NAME fee
----- ------------------------------ ---------
ora
Oracle database
5000
vbnet VB.NET 6000
c C
programming 4000
asp
ASP.NET
5000
java Java
Language 5000
xml XML
Programming 4000
Scientific functions
The following are the other arithmetic functions
that are rarely used in business applications.
They are mainly used in scientific applications. However as they are available in Oracle, we
will get to know them.
|
Function
|
Description
|
|
ACOS(value)
|
Arc cosine of the
given value. The value is in
the range –1 to 1 and return value is in radians.
|
|
ASIN(value)
|
Arc sine of the value.
|
|
ATAN(value)
|
Arc tangent of the value.
|
|
COS(value)
|
Cosine of the value.
|
|
COSH(value)
|
Hyperbolic cosine of
the value.
|
|
EXP(value)
|
Return e
(2.71828183) raised to value power.
|
|
LN(value)
|
Natural logarithm of value.
|
|
LOG(base,value)
|
Logarithm with base
of value.
|
|
SIN(value)
|
Sine of the value.
|
|
SINH(value)
|
Hyperbolic sine of
the value.
|
|
TAN(value)
|
Tangent of the value.
|
|
TANH(value)
|
Hyperbolic tangent of
the value.
|
Table
2: Scientific Functions.
The following are few examples of these
scientific functions.
select exp(2) from dual;
EXP(2)
---------
7.3890561
select log(10,10) from dual
LOG(10,10)
----------
1
SELECT COS(180
* 3.14159265359/180)
from dual
COS(180*3.14159265359/180)
--------------------------
-1
Date Arithmetic
When arithmetic operators are used with DATE
datatype it is called as Date Arithmetic.
The following are the possible arithmetic
operations on DATE type data.
* Adding a number to date to get the date after the given number of
days.
* Subtracting a number from a date to get the date before the given
number of days.
* Subtracting two dates to get the number of days between these two
dates.
The following example displays the name of the
student and number of days between system date and date of joining.
select name, sysdate - dj from students;
NAME No Days
------------------------------ ---------
George Micheal 226.29194
Micheal Douglas
225.29194
Andy Roberts 225.29194
Malcom Marshall 220.29194
Vivan Richards 220.29194
Chirs Evert 222.29194
Ivan Lendal 221.29194
George Micheal 176.29194
Richard Marx 140.29194
Tina Turner 140.29194
Jody Foster 139.29194
In Oracle DATE datatype stores date and time. At
the time of storing a date If time is not given then it will be set to 0 hours,
0 minutes and 0 seconds (beginning of the day or 12:00 a.m.).
Default date format – DD-MON-YY – doesn’t
include time. However time is always stored along with date and if you want to
at any time you can extract the time portion a date using TO_CHAR function,
which will be discussed in the next chapter.
3.
Note: All comparisons between two dates include time portion also.
4.
Note: The fraction portion in the result
between two dates indicates the difference in time.
The following example shows the due date for
first installment (assuming first installment is to be paid within 10 days from
the date of joining).
select name,dj, dj + 10 "Due
Date" from students
NAME DJ Due Date
------------------------------ ---------
---------
George Micheal 10-JAN-01 20-JAN-01
Micheal Douglas 11-JAN-01 21-JAN-01
Andy Roberts 11-JAN-01 21-JAN-01
Malcom Marshall 16-JAN-01 26-JAN-01
Vivan Richards 16-JAN-01 26-JAN-01
Chirs Evert 14-JAN-01 24-JAN-01
Ivan Lendal 15-JAN-01 25-JAN-01
George Micheal 01-MAR-01 11-MAR-01
Richard Marx 06-APR-01 16-APR-01
Tina Turner 06-APR-01 16-APR-01
Jody Foster 07-APR-01 17-APR-01
The following query displays the details of the
payment that were made in the last 3 days:
select * from payments
Where sysdate
– dp <= 3;
Date Functions
Date functions operate on values of DATE
datatype. Except MONTHS_BETWEEN all date
functions return DATE data type. The following is the list of DATE functions.
|
Function
|
Description
|
|
ADD_MONTHS(date, count)
|
Adds count number of months to date.
|
|
MONTHS_BETWEEN (date1, date2)
|
Returns number of months between date1
and date2.
|
|
LAST_DAY(date)
|
Returns the last day of the month in which date
is.
|
|
NEXT_DAY(date, ’day’)
|
Gives the date of next day after the
date, where day name of the week like ‘Monday’.
|
|
NEW_TIME(date, ’this’, ’other’)
|
Returns time in other time zone for
time of this time zone.
|
|
ROUND(date)
|
Rounds the date depending upon the time. If
time is at or after 12 hours then date is incremented. Time is always set to
beginning of the day (0:0:0).
|
|
TRUNC(date)
|
Same as ROUND (date) but doesn’t increment
date.
|
Table 3: DATE Functions.
Adding and subtracting months
You can add or subtract months from a date
using ADD_MONTHS function. If the count is positive, that many months will be
added. If count is negative that many months will be subtracted.
Adding months is the process where Oracle
will give the date of next specified number of months.
In the following example, Oracle will add
two months to system date:
SQL> Select sysdate, add_months(sysdate,2)
2 From dual;
SYSDATE
ADD_MONTH
--------- ---------
25-AUG-01 25-OCT-01
If the target month doesn’t have the
required day then the last day of the month will be taken. In the following
example, 30-SEP-2001 is returned, as 31-SEP is not available. Oracle
automatically adjusts the date according to the requirement.
SQL>
select add_months('31-aug-2001',1) from dual;
ADD_MONTH
---------
30-SEP-01
The following example will show the date on
which the students of completed batches will be issued certificates assuming it
will take 3 months time to issue certificates.
SQL> select bcode, ccode, enddate,
add_months(enddate,3) "Cert. Date"
2 from
batches
3 where
enddate is not null;
BCODE CCODE ENDDATE Cert. Dat
----- ----- --------- ---------
b1
ora 20-FEB-01 20-MAY-01
b2
asp 05-MAR-01 05-JUN-01
b3
c 27-FEB-01 27-MAY-01
b4
xml 30-MAR-01 30-JUN-01
b5
java 10-MAY-01 10-AUG-01
When the second parameter – count - is negative, date is decremented by that many
months.
The following example shows the date on which
the admissions for running batches have started. For a batch admissions start
exactly one month before the starting date.
select bcode, ccode, stdate,
add_months(stdate,-1)
from
batches where enddate is null
BCODE CCODE STDATE ADD_MONTH
----- ----- --------- ---------
b6
vbnet 12-JUL-01 12-JUN-01
b7
ora 15-AUG-01 15-JUL-01
Getting months between two dates
You can obtain the number of months between two
dates using MONTHS_BETWEEN function. The
following query returns the number of months between starting date and ending
date of all completed batches.
select
bcode, ccode, stdate, enddate,
months_between(enddate, stdate)
"NO. Months"
from
batches where enddate is not null;
BCODE
CCODE STDATE ENDDATE NO. Months
-----
----- --------- --------- ----------
b1 ora
12-JAN-01 20-FEB-01 1.2580645
b2 asp
15-JAN-01 05-MAR-01 1.6774194
b3 c
20-JAN-01 27-FEB-01 1.2258065
b4 xml
02-MAR-01 30-MAR-01 .90322581
b5 java
05-APR-01 10-MAY-01 1.1612903
The fraction in the result is the number of days
beyond the number of months. For example, the difference between 12-JAN-01 and
20-FEB-01 is 1.258. It means there is
one month and 26% of another month, which comes to 8 days.
5.
Note: The fraction is calculated based
on a 31-day month and also considers time portion.
Use TRUNC function to ignore fraction in the
result of MONTHS_BETWEEN as follows:
select bcode, ccode, stdate, enddate,
trunc(months_between( enddate, stdate)) "NO. Months"
from batches where enddate is not null;
BCODE CCODE STDATE ENDDATE
NO. Months
----- ----- --------- --------- ----------
b1
ora 12-JAN-01 20-FEB-01 1
b2
asp 15-JAN-01 05-MAR-01 1
b3
c 20-JAN-01 27-FEB-01 1
b4
xml 02-MAR-01 30-MAR-01 0
b5
java 05-APR-01 10-MAY-01 1
6.
Note: It is possible to send the return value of a function to another
function.
The following query displays the batches that we
completed in the last 6 months and duration is more that 1 month.
select bcode, ccode
from batches
where
months_between(sysdate,enddate) <= 6
and
months_between(enddate,stdate) > 1;
BCODE CCODE
----- -----
b2 asp
b3 c
b5 java
LAST_DAY function
LAST_DAY function returns the date of the last
day of the month of the given date. The following statement displays the last
day of the current month:
Select
sysdate, last_day(sysdate)
From
dual;
SYSDATE
LAST_DAY(
--------- ---------
25-AUG-01 31-AUG-01
The following query displays the due date by
which first installment of each batch is to be paid. LAST_DAY function return the last day of the
month in which batch has started and if 5 is added to that then it will be 5th
of the next month – due date of first installment.
select
bcode,ccode, stdate, last_day(stdate) + 5 "Due Date"
from batches
BCODE CCODE STDATE Due Date
----- ----- --------- ---------
b1
ora 12-JAN-01 05-FEB-01
b2
asp 15-JAN-01 05-FEB-01
b3
c 20-JAN-01 05-FEB-01
b4
xml 02-MAR-01 05-APR-01
b5 java 05-APR-01 05-MAY-01
b6
vbnet 12-JUL-01 05-AUG-01
b7
ora 15-AUG-01 05-SEP-01
Similarly assuming the batches are
scheduled in the last week of previous month for each batch, the following
query displays the date of last week:
select bcode, ccode, stdate,
last_day(add_months(stdate,-1)) - 7 ||
' to ' ||
last_day(add_months(stdate), -1)
from batches
BCODE CCODE STDATE Schd. Week
----- ----- --------- ----------------------
b1
ora 12-JAN-01 24-DEC-00 to
31-DEC-00
b2 asp 15-JAN-01 24-DEC-00 to 31-DEC-00
b3
c 20-JAN-01 24-DEC-00 to
31-DEC-00
b4
xml 02-MAR-01 21-FEB-01 to
28-FEB-01
b5
java 05-APR-01 24-MAR-01 to
31-MAR-01
b6
vbnet 12-JUL-01 23-JUN-01 to 30-JUN-01
b7
ora 15-AUG-01 24-JUL-01 to 31-JUL-01
NEXT_DAY function
This function returns the date of given
weekday that is greater than the given date.
It takes weekday – Sunday, Monday etc. – and returns the date on which
the coming weekday is falling. The return value is always grater than the given
date. The following example shows when
is the next Friday.
select
sysdate, next_day(sysdate,'Fri')
from dual;
SYSDATE
NEXT_DAY(
--------- ---------
25-AUG-01 31-AUG-01
If weekday of the given date and the given
weekday happen to be the same then the
date of coming weekday is
returned. This is because the result of this function is always greater than
the given date. See the following example where though the given date - 25-AUG
- is Saturday NEXT_DAY returns the next Saturday and not the same date.
select
sysdate, next_day(sysdate,'Sat')
from dual
SYSDATE
NEXT_DAY(
--------- ---------
25-AUG-01 01-SEP-01
But what if you want to get the same date,
when day of the week of the given date
is same as the one asked for? The following query will return the same date if
date happens to fall on the required weekday.
select
sysdate, next_day(sysdate - 1,'Sat')
from dual
SYSDATE
NEXT_DAY(
--------- ---------
25-AUG-01 25-AUG-01
When one is subtracted from the system date,
though the date happens to be on Saturday it become Friday (24-AUG) because of
the subtraction. Then NEXT_DAY returns the 25-AUG as it is grater than the
given date – 24-AUG.
ROUND
& TRUNC functions with dates
DATE data type contains both date and time. ROUND and TRUNC function can be used to round
or truncate the date based on the time portion. The following query displays the date and
time portion of system date using TO_CHAR function. It is suffice to know that
TO_CHAR can be used to convert given date to character type using the given
format.
Select
to_char(sysdate,'dd-mm-yyyy hh24:mi:ss') from dual
TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'DD
-------------------
25-08-2001
18:42:08
7.
Note: TO_CHAR converts a DATE type data
to character type. Please see next chapter
for more information on TO_CHAR.
ROUND function adds one day to the date if time
portion of the date is greater than or equal to 12 noon.
select
sysdate, to_char(round(sysdate),'dd-mm-yyyy hh24:mi:ss') “Round Date" from
dual
SYSDATE Round Date
---------
-------------------
25-AUG-01
26-08-2001 00:00:00
In the above query first ROUND function is used
to round SYSDATE. As we have seen the time in SYSDATE is 18 hours, the date is
incremented by one – 26-AUG. ROUND
always sets the time portion to 0:0:0 (as seen in the output of the query).
TRUNC function doesn’t increment the date
based on the time, but it sets time portion to 0 hours, 0 minutes and 0
seconds. The following query shows the
result of TRUNC function.
select
to_char(sysdate,'dd-mm-yyyy hh24:mi:ss') "Today",
to_char( trunc(sysdate),'dd-mm-yyyy
hh24:mi:ss') "Truncated Date"
from
dual
Today Truncated Date
-------------------
-------------------
25-08-2001
18:56:53 25-08-2001 00:00:00
8.
Note: Both ROUND and TRUNC set the time
portion in the DATE data type to 12 A.M. (00:00:00).
The following query is used to displays the
details of the payments made today.
select * from payments
where dp
= sysdate;
The above query always returns no rows
selected. This is because when
Oracle compares two dates it takes date and time portions into account. In the above query, though PAYMENTS table
contains rows where DP is containing the same date as SYSDATE, the time
portions will not match. The remedy is to ignore time portions and compare only
date portions of the dates. The
following is revised query where we truncate the dates to set both the times to
0:0:0 so that only dates are compared as times are equal.
select * from payments
where
trunc(dp) = trunc(sysdate);
The following is another example where TRUNC is
used to ignore time portion of DP and compare date with 10-apr-2001.
select * from payments
where
trunc(dp) = '10-apr-2001'
ROLLNO
DP AMOUNT
--------- --------- ---------
10
10-APR-01 4500
11
10-APR-01 3500
Getting time in different time zone
NEW_TIME is used to return the time of the
specified time zone for the time of the given time zone.
The following query displays what will be
the time in PST for the time in GMT.
select to_char(sysdate,'dd-mm-yyyy
hh24:mi:ss') GMT ,
to_char(
new_time(sysdate,'GMT','AST'),'dd-mm-yyyy hh24:mi:ss') AST
from dual
TO_CHAR(SYSDATE,'DD TO_CHAR(NEW_TIME(SY
------------------- -------------------
25-08-2001 19:35:36 25-08-2001 15:35:36
The following are a few of the available time
zones. For complete lit, please see Oracle online documentation.
Time Zone |
Meaning
|
EST , EDT |
Eastern Standard or
Daylight Time
|
GMT |
Greenwich Mean Time
|
HST , HDT |
Alaska-Hawaii
Standard Time or Daylight Time.
|
PST , PDT |
Pacific Standard or
Daylight Time
|
AST , ADT |
Atlantic Standard or
Daylight Time
|
Summary
A function is to perform a single operation and
return a value. Functions are of different types. Arithmetic functions are used
to perform arithmetic operations. Date functions perform operations on date
type data. Performing arithmetic operations on dates is called as date
arithmetic. DUAL table is with SELECT command to display the result of
expression that do not relate to any table.
No comments:
Post a Comment