Error on POSTGRES SQL QUERY invalid Syntax

Question

I have a query similar to this

select to_char(
    select min(date) from MyTable, 
    'YYYY-MM-DD'
);

But I keep getting this error

ERROR:  syntax error at or near "select"
LINE 2:  select min(date) from MyTable, 
     ^
SQL state: 42601
Character: 18

Gordon Linoff · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-19 17:33:09Z

2

Subqueries need their own parentheses:

select to_char( (select min(date) from MyTable), 'YYYY-MM-DD');

This would more traditionally be written as:

select to_char(min(date), 'YYYY-MM-DD')
from MyTable;

No subquery is necessary.

answered Feb 19, 2019 at 17:33

Gordon Linoff

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