I have started this with a different title. Easy to get lost among the bunch of postings under the earlier "Oracle and DST changes". Another gem for Metalink Note:402742.1. Thought i will share it with the list. $ sqlplus [1]usr1@tns SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Wed Jan 31 16:23:37 2007 Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. Enter password: Connected to: Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options SQL>select case to_number(to_char(to_timestamp_tz 2 ('20070311 00:00:00 US/EASTERN','YYYYMMDD HH24:MI:SS TZR') 3 + to_dsinterval('0 08:00:00'),'HH24')) 4 when 8 then 'The patch has not been applied' 5 when 9 then 'The patch has been applied correctly' 6 else 'Error' end "TZTEST (RUN FROM DB HOME)" 7 from dual; TZTEST (RUN FROM DB HOME) ------------------------------------ The patch has been applied correctly 1 row selected. SQL>quit Disconnected from Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.3.0 - 64bit Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options SQL>sqlplus [2]usr2@tns2 SQL*Plus: Release 9.2.0.1.0 - Production on Wed Jan 31 16:23:53 2007 Copyright (c) 1982, 2002, Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved. Enter password: Connected to: Oracle Database 10g Enterprise Edition Release 10.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production With the Partitioning, OLAP and Data Mining options COUNTS:NCSQC>select case to_number(to_char(to_timestamp_tz 2 ('20070311 00:00:00 US/EASTERN','YYYYMMDD HH24:MI:SS TZR') + to_dsinterval('0 08:00:00'),'HH24')) 3 4 when 8 then 'The patch has not been applied' 5 when 9 then 'The patch has been applied correctly' 6 else 'Error' end "TZTEST (RUN FROM DB HOME)" 7 from dual; TZTEST (RUN FROM DB HOME) ------------------------------------ The patch has not been applied 1 row selected. SQL> For JVM testing too the above Note:402742.1 has the code. HTH GovindanK References 1. mailto:usr1@tns 2. mailto:usr2@tns2