SQL supports special formats for literals to be used in conjunction with date‑time data types. Basic predicates and the VALUES clause of INSERT statements can specify date literals directly for comparison and insertion into tables. In other cases, you need to convert date literals to the appropriate date‑time data type with the CAST, CONVERT, or TO_DATE scalar functions.

Enclose date‑time literals in single quotation marks ( ' ' ).

Notes

• All text (names of days, months, ordinal number endings) in all date‑format literals must be in the English language. The default date format is American. You can explicitly request another date format by using a format string.
• Time literals are in the English language only.