Skip to Main Content
IBM Data and AI Ideas Portal for Customers


This portal is to open public enhancement requests against products and services offered by the IBM Data & AI organization. To view all of your ideas submitted to IBM, create and manage groups of Ideas, or create an idea explicitly set to be either visible by all (public) or visible only to you and IBM (private), use the IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com).


Shape the future of IBM!

We invite you to shape the future of IBM, including product roadmaps, by submitting ideas that matter to you the most. Here's how it works:


Search existing ideas

Start by searching and reviewing ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted, and add a comment, vote, or subscribe to updates on them if they matter to you. If you can't find what you are looking for,


Post your ideas

Post ideas and requests to enhance a product or service. Take a look at ideas others have posted and upvote them if they matter to you,

  1. Post an idea

  2. Upvote ideas that matter most to you

  3. Get feedback from the IBM team to refine your idea


Specific links you will want to bookmark for future use

Welcome to the IBM Ideas Portal (https://www.ibm.com/ideas) - Use this site to find out additional information and details about the IBM Ideas process and statuses.

IBM Unified Ideas Portal (https://ideas.ibm.com) - Use this site to view all of your ideas, create new ideas for any IBM product, or search for ideas across all of IBM.

ideasibm@us.ibm.com - Use this email to suggest enhancements to the Ideas process or request help from IBM for submitting your Ideas.

IBM Employees should enter Ideas at https://ideas.ibm.com


Status Not under consideration
Workspace Db2
Created by Guest
Created on Feb 9, 2015

VARCHAR_FORMAT/TO_CHAR function does not support timestamp formatting using brackets(RIMS)

PMR 28054,020,649 Customer is moving from Oracle to DB2 and under their Oracle applications they are using the TO_CHAR function. That function works in DB2 under the name of VARCHAR_FORMAT or TO_CHAR. The following TO_CHAR function is not working under DB2 because of the brackets around the timestamp formatting : (HH:MI:SS) Example: C:\>db2 'SELECT TO_CHAR(CREATE_TIME, 'MON DD YYYY (HH:MI:SS)') AS CREATION_TIME FROM SYSCAT.TABLES WHERE TABNAME LIKE 'SYSU%'' SQL20447N Format string 'MON DD YYYY (HH:MI:SS)' is not valid for the 'SYSIBM.VARCHAR_FORMAT' function. SQLSTATE=22007 ------------------------------ If the brackets are removed the call will work but the customer needs the time format using the brackets: (HH:MI:SS) Customer would like DB2 to be enhanced to support the brackets in the timestamp formatting of the TO_CHAR/VARCHAR_FORMAT function.