Change date precision values Exposition: I have an oracle database table with date format as 'mm/dd/yyyy' and an unique constraint that contains the date column. My issue is that I can't seem to find a method to change the internal date format, which I need to get down to the second (ie 'mm/dd/yyyy hh12:mi:ss').  I do NOT want to change the query of the output format, I want to change the stored value to be updated.

Question: Is it even possible to get the database precision down to the second? If so how, I assume its an update or alter command?
I have an oracle database table with date format as 'mm/dd/yyyy'


No you don't.. ;)

You have an Oracle database table with a date datatype.  Period.

Any type of "format" is for display only, and is easily modified.

  SQL&gt; create table junk ( id number,  dd  date );

  Table created.

  SQL&gt; insert into junk values ( 1, sysdate );

  1 row created.

  SQL&gt; commit;

  Commit complete.

  SQL&gt; select * from junk;

          ID DD
  ---------- ---------
           1 31-MAY-16

  SQL&gt;
  SQL&gt; alter session set nls_date_format='dd-mon-yyyy hh24:mi:ss'
    2  /

  Session altered.

  SQL&gt; select * from junk;

          ID DD
  ---------- --------------------
           1 31-may-2016 11:17:44

  SQL&gt;


An Oracle DATE datatype holds Year + Month + Day + Hours + Minutes + Seconds information.
It's up to you how to display/use it.

Note that an Oracle TIMESTAMP datatype holds milliseconds in addition to what a DATE holds.

It would be much easier to give you a more specific answer if you'd actually show your table definition, and your query and explain the problem you're having, and what you want to see.