The following is a list of valid parameters when the to_char function is used to convert a date to a string. These parameters can be used in many combinations.
The following are date examples for the to_char function.
You will notice that in some examples, the format_mask parameter begins with "FM". This means that zeros and blanks are suppressed. This can be seen in the examples below.
to_char(sysdate, 'FMMonth DD, YYYY');would return 'July 9, 2003'
to_char(sysdate, 'FMMON DDth, YYYY');would return 'JUL 9TH, 2003'
to_char(sysdate, 'FMMon ddth, YYYY');would return 'Jul 9th, 2003'
The zeros have been suppressed so that the day component shows as "9" as opposed to "09".