Oracle EXTRACT

The Oracle EXTRACT() function extracts a specific component (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, etc.,) from a datetime or an interval value.

Syntax

The following illustrates the syntax of the Oracle EXTRACT() function:

EXTRACT(field FROM source)

Arguments

The Oracle EXTRACT() function accepts two arguments:

1) field

The field argument specifies the component to be extracted.

2) source

The source argument is a DATE, an INTERVAL, or a TIMESTAMP value from which a field is extracted.

The following table illustrates which fields you can extract from which value type.

Note that the EXTRACT() function will return UNKNOWN if the combination of field and source result in ambiguity.

Return value

The EXTRACT() function returns the value of the field of the source.

Examples

A) Extracting fields from DATE values

You can extract YEAR, MONTH, DAY from a DATE value by using the EXTRACT() function.

The following example extracts the value of the YEAR field from a DATE value.

SELECT
  EXTRACT( YEAR FROM TO_DATE( '31-Dec-1999 15:30:20 ',  'DD-Mon-YYYY HH24:MI:SS' ) ) YEAR
FROM
  DUAL;

In this example, we used the TO_DATE() function to convert a date literal to a DATE value.

Here is the result

1999

Similarly, you can extract the values of other fields as shown below:

Extracting month from a date:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( MONTH FROM TO_DATE( '31-Dec-1999 15:30:20 ',  'DD-Mon-YYYY HH24:MI:SS' ) ) MONTH
FROM
  DUAL;

Result

12

Extracting day from a date:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( DAY FROM TO_DATE( '31-Dec-1999 15:30:20 ',  'DD-Mon-YYYY HH24:MI:SS' ) ) DAY
FROM
  DUAL;

Result

31

To extract values of HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND fields, you use TO_CHAR() function.

For example, to extract hour, minute, and second of a current system date, you use the following statement:

SELECT
  TO_CHAR( SYSDATE, 'HH24' ) hour, 
  TO_CHAR( SYSDATE, 'MI' ) minute,
  TO_CHAR( SYSDATE, 'SS' ) second
FROM
  DUAL;

B) Extracting fields from INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH values

For the INTERVAL YEAR TO MONTH, you can extract only YEAR and MONTH fields.

Suppose you have the following interval:

INTERVAL '5-2' YEAR TO MONTH

It is 5 years 2 months.

To extract the value of the year field, you use the following statement:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( YEAR FROM INTERVAL '5-2' YEAR TO MONTH )
FROM
  DUAL;

The result is

5

The following example extracts the value of the month field from the interval:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( MONTH FROM INTERVAL '5-2' YEAR TO MONTH )
FROM
  DUAL; 

Here is the result:

2

C) Extracting fields from INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND values

For an INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND, you can extract DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND as shown in the following example:

Extract day from an interval

SELECT
  EXTRACT( DAY FROM INTERVAL '5 04:30:20.11' DAY TO SECOND )
FROM
  dual;

Result:

5

Extract hour from an interval

SELECT
  EXTRACT( HOUR FROM INTERVAL '5 04:30:20.11' DAY TO SECOND )
FROM
  dual;

Result:

4

Extract minute from an interval

SELECT
  EXTRACT( MINUTE FROM INTERVAL '5 04:30:20.11' DAY TO SECOND )
FROM
  dual;

Result:

30

Extract second from an interval

SELECT
  EXTRACT( SECOND FROM INTERVAL '5 04:30:20.11' DAY TO SECOND )
FROM
  dual;  

Result:

20.11

D) Extracting fields from TIMESTAMP values

You can extract YEAR, MONTH, DAY, HOUR, MINUTE, and SECOND from a TIMESTAMP value as shown in the following examples:

Extracting year from a timestamp:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( YEAR FROM TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 23:59:59.10' )
FROM
  dual;

Result

1999

Extracting month from a timestamp:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( MONTH FROM TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 23:59:59.10' )
FROM
  dual;

Result

12

Extracting day from a timestamp:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( DAY FROM TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 23:59:59.10' )
FROM
  dual;  

Result

31

Extracting hour from a timestamp:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( HOUR FROM TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 23:59:59.10' )
FROM
  dual;    

Result

23

Extracting minute from a timestamp:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( MINUTE FROM TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 23:59:59.10' )
FROM
  dual;      

Result

59

Extracting second from a timestamp:

SELECT
  EXTRACT( SECOND FROM TIMESTAMP '1999-12-31 23:59:59.10' )
FROM
  dual;       

Result

59.10

E) Extracting date components from table data

See the following orders table from the sample database:

The following statement uses the EXTRACT() function to extract the year and month from the order date and return the number of order per month:

SELECT 
    EXTRACT(year FROM order_date) year,
    EXTRACT(month FROM order_date) month,
    COUNT(order_id) order_count
FROM orders
GROUP BY 
     EXTRACT(YEAR FROM order_date),
    EXTRACT(MONTH FROM order_date)
ORDER BY year DESC, month;

Result

F) Extracting date from user input

The following statement attempts to extract the year, month, and day from a date that user inputs:

SELECT 
    EXTRACT(YEAR FROM :input_date) year,
    EXTRACT(MONTH FROM :input_date) month,
    EXTRACT(DAY FROM :input_date) day
FROM dual;

However, Oracle issue an error:

ORA-30076: invalid extract field for extract source

To fix this error, you need to convert the input date to a date value using the TO_DATE function. Suppose that the format of the input date is YYYYMMDD:

SELECT 
    EXTRACT(YEAR FROM TO_DATE(:input_date,'yyyymmdd')) year,
    EXTRACT(MONTH FROM TO_DATE(:input_date,'yyyymmdd')) month,
    EXTRACT(DAY FROM TO_DATE(:input_date,'yyyymmdd')) day
FROM dual;

And when you enter the input date as 20191126, the output is as follows:

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the Oracle EXTRACT() function to extract the value of a specified field of a date-time value.