Oracle SYSDATE

The Oracle SYSDATE function returns the current date and time of the Operating System (OS) where the Oracle Database is running.

Syntax

Since the SYSDATE function does not require any argument, you can call it without specifying the parentheses:

SYSDATECode language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

The SYSDATE function returns the current date and time value whose type is DATE.

The format of the returned date time value depends on the value of the NLS_DATE_FORMAT parameter.

The following example returns the current date and time of the OS where the Oracle Database resides:

SELECT 
    TO_CHAR(SYSDATE, 'MM-DD-YYYY HH24:MI:SS') 
FROM 
    dual;
Code language: SQL (Structured Query Language) (sql)

In this example, we used the TO_CHAR() function to format the current system date and time value returned by the SYSDATE function.

The following table illustrates the arithmetic of the SYSDATE function:

SYSDATE Math	Description
`WHERE (date) > SYSDATE - 8/24;`	Past 8 hours
`WHERE (date) > SYSDATE - 30;`	Past 30 days
`WHERE (date) > SYSDATE - 30/1440;`	Past 30 minutes
`8/24`	8 hours
`15/24/60/60`	15 seconds
`1/24/60`	One minute
`1/24`	One hour
`TRUNC(SYSDATE+1/24,'HH')`	1 hour starting with the next hour

The Oracle SYSDATE function cannot be used in the condition of a CHECK constraint.

In this tutorial, you have learned how to use the Oracle SYSDATE function to get the current system date and time.

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