LAST_DAY
Description of the illustration ''last_day.gif''
LAST_DAY returns the date of the last day of the month that contains date. The last day of the month is defined by the session parameter NLS_CALENDAR. The return type is always DATE, regardless of the data type of date.
The following statement determines how many days are left in the current month.
SELECT SYSDATE,
LAST_DAY(SYSDATE) "Last",
LAST_DAY(SYSDATE) - SYSDATE "Days Left"
FROM DUAL;
SYSDATE Last Days Left
--------- --------- ----------
30-MAY-09 31-MAY-09 1
The following example adds 5 months to the hire date of each employee to give an evaluation date:
SELECT last_name, hire_date,
TO_CHAR(ADD_MONTHS(LAST_DAY(hire_date), 5)) "Eval Date"
FROM employees
ORDER BY last_name, hire_date;
LAST_NAME HIRE_DATE Eval Date
------------------------- --------- ---------
Abel 11-MAY-04 31-OCT-04
Ande 24-MAR-08 31-AUG-08
Atkinson 30-OCT-05 31-MAR-06
Austin 25-JUN-05 30-NOV-05
Baer 07-JUN-02 30-NOV-02
Baida 24-DEC-05 31-MAY-06
Banda 21-APR-08 30-SEP-08
Bates 24-MAR-07 31-AUG-07
. . .