In Oracle/PLSQL, the to_date function converts a string to a date.
The syntax for the to_date function is:
to_date( string1, [ format_mask ], [ nls_language ] )
string1 is the string that will be converted to a date.
format_mask is optional. This is the format that will be used to convert string1 to a date.
nls_language is optional. This is the nls language used to convert string1 to a date.
The following is a list of options for the format_mask parameter. These parameters can be used in many combinations.