Displaying dates in PL/SQL Developer verses other tools

[Helen]

Hello - I've used SQL Developer and SQL Plus intensively but have only just started with PL/SQL Developer (version 12.0.7.1837 (64 bit ) 01.120308 and Oracle database 12.2)

I have come across a couple of display inconsistencies with the three tools and I wanted to check that it was the tool and not me!

1. Dates - my database default is set to DD-MON-RR yet selecting a date column it gets displayed as 16-Jul-18 in PL/SQL Developer but the other two tools use 16-JUL-18. Is there a setting I can set to force it to use the default setting? I appreciate I can use TO_CHAR but I don't need to use that in either of the other tools and was wondering if there is a preference setting I'm missing.

2. SYSDATE also gets displayed differently ie PL/SQL Developer seems to display the time element by default where as the other two don't - is that expected behaviour? So 16-Jul-18 11:51:52 as opposed to 16-JUL-18

I've got my preferences set for dates to the Oracle format.

I appreciate these are quite small differences for most people but are quite important to my work.

Any help much appreciated
Regards
Helen

 

[Marco Kalter]

By default PL/SQL Developer displays date values in the format defined in the Windows Control Panel. It does not use the Oracle format for this.

To change the formats, go to Preferences > User Interface / NLS Options.

 

[Helen]

Hello Marco - thanks for taking the time to reply. I changed the preferences to Oracle format which displays date columns as 17-Jul-18 but why is SYSDATE displayed differently ie 17-Jul-18 10:54:23?
Regards
Helen

 

[Marco Kalter]

PL/SQL Developer never ignores non-zero time fractions.

You would need to truncate the date field to omit the time fraction:

select trunc(sysdate) from dual

 

[Helen]

Ah OK- all my test data had zero time elements hence they never got displayed - I just assumed (wrongly as it turns out) that the display was something specific to SYSDATE - thanks for clarifying.
Regards
Helen