I get the following error when I try the statement below. Through elimination I know it is the dates that are causing the problem. I have set the date format to this: alter session set NLS_DATE_FORMAT = 'YYYY-MM-DD'; $sql_season: insert into season (id, code, start_date, end_date) values (16, 'all', '2001-04-06', '2001-09-20') Warning: OCIStmtExecute: ORA-01861: literal does not match format string in ... on line 44 Can anyone help? Cheers Simon.