title: Converting to date with multiple possible masks in Oracle
body: <p>It so happens that I have to get a date from a varchar2 column in oracle, but it is inconsistent in formatting. Some fields might have '2009.12.31', others '2009/12/32 00:00:00'. Is there any standard construct I could use, so that I don't have to go through</p>
  
  <pre><code>begin
    to_date(date, mask1)
  exception
    begin
      to_date(date,mask2)
    exception
      ..
    end
  end
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>blocks or prior date string analysis to determine the correct mask? Something like <code>to_date(date, mask1,mask2,..)</code> ?</p>