DATE and DATETIME data types

Informix®

Informix provides two data types to store date and time information:

DATE = for year, month and day storage.
DATETIME = for year to fraction (1-5) storage.

The DATE type is stored as an INTEGER with the number of days since 1899/12/31.

The DATETIME type can be defined with various time units, by specifying a start and end qualifier. For example, you can define a datetime to store an hour-to-second time value with DATETIME HOUR TO SECOND.

The values of Informix DATETIME can be represented with a character string literal, or as DATETIME() literals:

'2017-12-24 15:45:12.345'  -- a DATETIME YEAR TO FRACTION(3)
'15:45'   -- a DATETIME HOUR TO MINUTE
DATETIME(2017-12-24 12:45) YEAR TO MINUTE
DATETIME(12:45:56.333) HOUR TO FRACTION(3)

Informix is able to convert quoted strings to DATE / DATETIME data, if the string contains matching environment parameters. The string to date conversion rules for DATE is defined by the DBDATE environment variable. The string to datetime format for DATETIME is defined by the GL_DATETIME environment variable.

Note: Within Genero programs, the string representation for DATETIME values is always ISO (YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss.fffff)

Informix supports date arithmetic on DATE and DATETIME values. The result of an arithmetic expression involving dates/times is an INTEGER number of days when only DATE values are used, and an INTERVAL value if a DATETIME is used in the expression.

Informix automatically converts an INTEGER to a DATE when the integer is used to set a value of a date column.

Informix provides the

CURRENT [ q1 TO
q2 ]

operator, to get the system date/time on the server where the current database is located. When no qualifiers are specified, CURRENT returns a

DATETIME
YEAR TO FRACTION(3)

. Informix also supports the SYSDATE operator, which returns the current system time as a DATETIME YEAR TO FRACTION(5).

Note: The USEOSTIME configuration parameter must be set to 1 in order to get the subsecond precision in CURRENT and SYSDATE operators. See Informix documentation for more details.

IBM® DB2®

IBM DB2 provides the following data type to store date and time data:

Table 1. IBM DB2 date/time data types
IBM DB2 data type	Description
`DATE`	for year, month, day storage
`TIME`	for hour, minutes, seconds storage
`TIMESTAMP`	for year, month, day, hour, minutes, seconds, fraction(12) storage

Like Informix, IBM DB2 can convert quoted strings to dates, times or timestamps. Only one format is possible: 'yyyy-mm-dd' for dates, 'hh:mm:ss' for times and 'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss:f' for timestamps.

In IBM DB2, the result of a date/time arithmetic expression involving DATE values is a number of days with a decimal part representing the fraction of the day ( 0.5 = 12H00, 2.00694444 = (2 + (10/1440)) = 2 days and 10 minutes ) ). The result of a date/time arithmetic expression involving TIME or TIMESTAMP values is a number of seconds with a decimal part representing the fraction of seconds.

Solution

Use the following conversion rules to map Informix date/time types to IBM DB2 date/time types:

Table 2. Informix data types and IBM DB2 equivalents
Informix data type	IBM DB2 data type
`DATE`	`DATE`
`DATETIME HOUR TO MINUTE`	`TIME`
`DATETIME HOUR TO SECOND`	`TIME`
`DATETIME HOUR TO FRACTION(n)`	`TIMESTAMP` (for fraction storage)
`DATETIME YEAR TO MONTH`	`TIMESTAMP`
`DATETIME YEAR TO DAY`	`TIMESTAMP`
`DATETIME YEAR TO HOUR`	`TIMESTAMP`
`DATETIME YEAR TO MINUTE`	`TIMESTAMP`
`DATETIME YEAR TO SECOND`	`TIMESTAMP`
`DATETIME YEAR TO FRACTION(n)`	`TIMESTAMP`

The DATE and DATETIME types translation can be controlled with the following FGLPROFILE entries:

dbi.database.dsname.ifxemul.datatype.date = { true | false }
dbi.database.dsname.ifxemul.datatype.datetime = { true | false }

For more details see IBM Informix emulation parameters in FGLPROFILE.

DB2 and Informix DATE data type are equivalent and store year, month, day values.

DB2 TIME data type can be used to store Informix DATETIME HOUR TO SECOND and DATETIME HOUR TO MINUTE values, and any other DATETIME type with qualifiers HOUR, MINUTE, SECOND, except FRACTION(n), because the DB2 TIME native type does not store fraction of seconds. Missing time parts default to 00:00:00. For example, when using a DATETIME MINUTE TO SECOND with the value of "45:23", the DB2 TIME value will be "00:45:23".

Informix DATETIME values with any qualifiers from YEAR to FRACTION(5) can be stored in DB2 TIMESTAMP columns. Missing date or time parts default to 1900-01-01 00:00:00.0. For example, when using a DATETIME DAY TO MINUTE with the value of "23 11:45", the DB2 TIMESTAMP value will be "1900-01-23 11:45:00.0".

Important:

Using integers as a number of days in an expression with dates is not supported by IBM DB2. Check your code to detect where you are using integers with DATE columns.
Literal DATETIME and INTERVAL expressions (i.e. DATETIME (1999-10-12) YEAR TO DAY) are not converted.
It is strongly recommended that you use BDL variables in dynamic SQL statements instead of quoted strings representing DATE values. For example:
```
LET stmt = "SELECT ... FROM customer WHERE creat_date >'", adate,"'"
```
is not portable, use a question mark place holder instead and OPEN the cursor USING adate:
```
LET stmt = "SELECT ... FROM customer WHERE creat_date > ?"
```
DATE arithmetic expressions using SQL parameters (USING variables) are not fully supported. The next example generates an error at PREPARE time:
```
SELECT ... WHERE datecol < ? +1
```
SQL Statements using expressions with TODAY / CURRENT / EXTEND must be reviewed and adapted to the native syntax.

CURRENT expressions

When using the CURRENT keyword without qualifiers, the SQL translator in ODI drivers will not convert this expression to a native equivalent, because it is difficult to find the required date/time precision. Depending on the context, the Informix CURRENT expression will be converted to match the target DATETIME or DATE type. In SQL statements, always use qualifiers after the CURRENT keyword, or use a DATETIME variable assigned with the current date/time set by program, and use this variable as SQL parameter.

-- Next CURRENT keyword will not be converted!
SELECT COUNT(*) INTO cnt FROM customer WHERE creadate < CURRENT
-- Best practice:
DEFINE dtcurr DATETIME YEAR TO FRACTION(3)
LET drcurr = CURRENT -- OK: it's the built-in language CURRENT expression!
SELECT COUNT(*) INTO cnt FROM customer WHERE creadate < dtcurr

Date/time SQL functions

Table 3. Informix and IBM DB2 date/time SQL functions
Informix	IBM DB2
`today`	`current date`
`current hour to second`	`current time`
`current year to fraction(5)`	`current timestamp`