Larry, Just saw your qst. Besides looking at the official Ora docs, you might look at 'Oracle pl/sql programming 3rd ed.' by Steven Feuerstein. He explains the whole time/date format subject in about 70 pages with a lot of examples about Timestamp Conversions. (Besides this: it's just an excellent book) -- Rob Zijlstra -- To unsubscribe - mailto:oracle-l-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx&subject=unsubscribe To search the archives - //www.freelists.org/archives/oracle-l/