SQL TO_CHAR

The reverse direction from TO_DATE/TO_TIMESTAMP — formats a date or timestamp INTO a text string, for human-readable display.

What & Why

TO_CHAR(date_or_timestamp, format) converts a date value into formatted text, using the same kind of format-pattern syntax as TO_DATE/TO_TIMESTAMP, just working in the opposite direction. This is the tool for turning a raw 2024-06-28 into something like "June 28, 2024" for a report.

See How It Works

BUSINESS QUESTION

Growth wants signup months formatted for a readable report label.

id	created_at	country	channel	plan	activated_at	churned_at
101	2024-01-15 09:10:00+00	US	organic	pro	2024-01-16 14:25:00+00	NULL
102	2024-02-10 11:05:00+00	CA	paid	free	NULL	2024-03-20 10:00:00+00
103	2024-03-12 16:35:00+00	GB	referral	pro	2024-03-13 08:15:00+00	NULL
104	2024-04-01 13:20:00+00	US	organic	free	2024-04-03 12:00:00+00	NULL

EXAMPLE QUERY

SELECT
  id AS user_id,
  TO_CHAR(created_at, 'YYYY-MM') AS signup_month_label
FROM growth.users
ORDER BY user_id;

RESULT — exact output from the displayed Queryflo rows

user_id	signup_month_label
101	2024-01
102	2024-02
103	2024-03
104	2024-04

TO_CHAR creates one YYYY-MM label for each user signup.

Now You Try

Practice this concept

Growth wants signup months formatted for a readable report label.

Available schema

growth

Prefix tables with growth.table_name.

user_idsignup_month_label

growth.users

Column	Type
id	integer
created_at	timestamp with time zone
country	text
channel	text
plan	text
activated_at	timestamp with time zone
churned_at	timestamp with time zone
legacy_user_code	text

query.sql

Intermediate business practice