Sending dates and times to the database

Date and times may be sent to the database in one of the following ways:

Using any interface, as a string
Using ODBC, as a TIMESTAMP structure
Using embedded SQL, as a SQLDATETIME structure

Date and times with time zone offsets may be sent to the database as a string only.

When a time is sent to the database as a string (for the TIME data type) or as part of a string (for DATE, TIMESTAMP or TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data types), the hours, minutes, and seconds must be separated by colons in the format hh:mm:ss.ssssss, but can appear anywhere in the string. The following are valid and unambiguous strings for specifying times:

21:35 -- 24 hour clock if no am or pm specified
10:00pm -- pm specified, so interpreted as 12 hour clock
10:00 -- 10:00am in the absence of pm
10:23:32.234 -- seconds and fractions of a second included

When a date is sent to the database as a string (for the DATE data type) or as part of a string (for TIMESTAMP or TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE data types), the string can be supplied in one of two ways:

As a string of format yyyy/mm/dd or yyyy-mm-dd, which is interpreted unambiguously by the database.
As a string interpreted according to the date_order database option. See date_order option.

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