Determine if Oracle date is on a weekend?

Question

Is this the best way to determine if an Oracle date is on a weekend?

select * from mytable
where 
TO_CHAR (my_date, \'DY\', \'NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE=ENGLISH\') IN         


        

Answer 1

MOD(TO_CHAR(my_date, 'J'), 7) + 1 IN (6, 7)

is NOT correct! The day number of weekend days may be 6 & 7, or 7 and 1, depending on the NLS-settings.

So the PROPER test (irrespective of NLS-settings) is this one mentioned before:

TO_CHAR (my_date, 'DY', 'NLS_DATE_LANGUAGE=ENGLISH') IN ('SAT', 'SUN')