ORA-00904: “FORMAT”: invalid identifier

Question

I am trying to format a date:

FORMAT(table.TCKT.TCKT_ISS_DATE, 'YYYY') AS TICKETYEAR

but I am getting the following error:

ORA-00904: "FORMAT": invalid identifier

Right now the date show the complete timestamp. Any suggestions on how to fix this problem, or any other way to format the date to just show the four digit year?

Answer 1

Use this function:

TO_CHAR(table.TCKT.TCKT_ISS_DATE, 'YYYY') AS TICKETYEAR 

Answer 2

You want to use TO_CHAR instead of FORMAT here, like this:

TO_CHAR(table.TCKT.TCKT_ISS_DATE, 'YYYY') AS TICKETYEAR

Oracle uses TO_CHAR for string casting, you can see here for additional format options.

Answer 3

There's also the option of using EXTRACT() which is ANSI-standard and portable:

EXTRACT(YEAR FROM table.TCKT.TCKT_ISS_DATE) AS ticketyear