CURRENT_TIMESTAMP

Syntax

current_timestamp::=

Text description of current_timestamp

Purpose

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP returns the current date and time in the session time zone, in a value of datatype TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE. The time zone displacement reflects the current local time of the SQL session. If you omit precision, the default is 6. The difference between this function and LOCALTIMESTAMP is that CURRENT_TIMESTAMP returns a TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE value while LOCALTIMESTAMP returns a TIMESTAMP value.

In the optional argument, precision specifies the fractional second precision of the time value returned.

Example

The following example illustrates that CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is sensitive to the session time zone:

ALTER SESSION SET TIME_ZONE = '-5:0';
ALTER SESSION SET NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'DD-MON-YYYY HH24:MI:SS';
SELECT SESSIONTIMEZONE, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;

SESSIONTIMEZONE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
--------------- ---------------------------------------------------
-05:00          04-APR-00 01.17.56.917550 PM -05:00

ALTER SESSION SET TIME_ZONE = '-8:0';
SELECT SESSIONTIMEZONE, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP FROM DUAL;

SESSIONTIMEZONE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
--------------- ----------------------------------------------------
-08:00          04-APR-00 10.18.21.366065 AM -08:00