LOCALTIMESTAMP

Syntax

Description of the illustration localtimestamp.gif

Purpose

LOCALTIMESTAMP returns the current date and time in the session time zone in a value of data type TIMESTAMP. The difference between this function and CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is that LOCALTIMESTAMP returns a TIMESTAMP value while CURRENT_TIMESTAMP returns a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE value.

The optional argument timestamp_precision specifies the fractional second precision of the time value returned.

Examples

This example illustrates the difference between LOCALTIMESTAMP and CURRENT_TIMESTAMP:

ALTER SESSION SET TIME_ZONE = '-5:00';
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, LOCALTIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP                    LOCALTIMESTAMP
-------------------------------------------------------------------
04-APR-00 01.27.18.999220 PM -05:00  04-APR-00 01.27.19 PM

ALTER SESSION SET TIME_ZONE = '-8:00';
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, LOCALTIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP                    LOCALTIMESTAMP
-----------------------------------  ------------------------------
04-APR-00 10.27.45.132474 AM -08:00  04-APR-00 10.27.451 AM

When you use the LOCALTIMESTAMP with a format mask, take care that the format mask matches the value returned by the function. For example, consider the following table:

CREATE TABLE local_test (col1 TIMESTAMP WITH LOCAL TIME ZONE);

The following statement fails because the mask does not include the TIME ZONE portion of the return type of the function:

INSERT INTO local_test VALUES 
   (TO_TIMESTAMP(LOCALTIMESTAMP, 'DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF'));

The following statement uses the correct format mask to match the return type of LOCALTIMESTAMP:

INSERT INTO local_test VALUES
   (TO_TIMESTAMP(LOCALTIMESTAMP, 'DD-MON-RR HH.MI.SSXFF PM'));