ORA-01843 not a valid month- Comparing Dates

Question

I have a problem when try to select data from a table filtering by date.

For example:

SELECT * FROM MYTABLE WHERE MYTABLE.DATEIN = '23/04/49';

The Oracle Error is:

Informe de error:
Error SQL: ORA-01843: mes no válido
01843. 00000 -  "not a valid month"
*Cause:    
*Action:

Probably the source data of table is corrupted, in this case:

• How can i solve this problem?
• Can I change this dates for null?

The results of this select, select * from nls_session_parameters; , is:

PARAMETER                      VALUE                                  
------------------------------ ----------------------------------------
NLS_LANGUAGE                   SPANISH                                  
NLS_TERRITORY                  SPAIN                                    
NLS_CURRENCY                   ¿                                        
NLS_ISO_CURRENCY               SPAIN                                    
NLS_NUMERIC_CHARACTERS         ,.                                       
NLS_CALENDAR                   GREGORIAN                                
NLS_DATE_FORMAT                DD/MM/RR                                 
NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE              SPANISH                                  
NLS_SORT                       SPANISH                                  
NLS_TIME_FORMAT                HH24:MI:SSXFF                            
NLS_TIMESTAMP_FORMAT           DD/MM/RR HH24:MI:SSXFF                   
NLS_TIME_TZ_FORMAT             HH24:MI:SSXFF TZR                        
NLS_TIMESTAMP_TZ_FORMAT        DD/MM/RR HH24:MI:SSXFF TZR               
NLS_DUAL_CURRENCY              ¿                                        
NLS_COMP                       BINARY                                   
NLS_LENGTH_SEMANTICS           BYTE                                     
NLS_NCHAR_CONV_EXCP            FALSE 

Solution 1

You should use the to_date function (oracle/functions/to_date.php )

SELECT * FROM MYTABLE WHERE MYTABLE.DATEIN = TO_DATE('23/04/49', 'DD/MM/YY');

Solution 2

You are comparing a date column to a string literal. In such a case, Oracle attempts to convert your literal to a date, using the default date format. It's a bad practice to rely on such a behavior, as this default may change if the DBA changes some configuration, Oracle breaks something in a future revision, etc.

Instead, you should always explicitly convert your literal to a date and state the format you're using:

SELECT * FROM MYTABLE WHERE MYTABLE.DATEIN = TO_DATE('23/04/49','MM/DD/YY');

Solution 3

If you don't need to check exact timestamp, use

SELECT * FROM MYTABLE WHERE trunc(DATEIN) = TO_DATE('23-04-49','DD-MM-YY');

otherwise, you can use

SELECT * FROM MYTABLE WHERE DATEIN = TO_DATE('23-04-49 20:18:07','DD-MM-YY HH24:MI:SS');

Here, you use hard code date,if you directly compare then you must use DD-MM-YY HH24:MI:SS else you might get ORA-01849: hour must be between 1 and 12.

Solution 4

I know this is a bit late, but I'm having a similar issue. SQL*Plus executes the query successfully, but Oracle SQL Developer shows the ORA-01843: not a valid month error.

SQL*Plus seems to know that the date I'm using is in the valid format, whereas Oracle SQL Developer needs to be told explicitly what format my date is in.

• SQL*Plus statement:

  select count(*) from some_table where DATE_TIME_CREATED < '09-12-23';
  

VS

• Oracle SQL Developer statement:

   select count(*) from some_table where DATE_TIME_CREATED < TO_DATE('09-12-23','RR-MM-DD');
  

Solution 5

Just in case this helps, I solved this by checking the server date format:

SELECT * FROM nls_session_parameters WHERE parameter = 'NLS_DATE_FORMAT';

then by using the following comparison (the left field is a date+time):

AND EV_DTTM >= ('01-DEC-16')

I was trying this with TO_DATE but kept getting an error. But when I matched my string with the NLS_DATE_FORMAT and removed TO_DATE, it worked...

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