title: Oracle SQL : Expand year to a full date
body: <p>This must be simple to answer, but how do you expand in Oracle a year to a full date, e.g.</p>
  
  <p><code>1996</code> to <code>1996-01-01 00:00:00</code> ?</p>
  
  <p>EDIT</p>
  
  <p>The data type of the year is char, and I want to end up by comparing this year to a string-date, e.g.</p>
  
  <p><code>1996</code> &lt;= <code>'1998-31-12 12:04:35'</code></p>
  
  <p>It is important that the expanded data is expanded in the same data Format (since I get the dates preformatted)</p>
  
  <p>At the end I need something like this</p>
  
  <p><code>WHERE (  to_date(table.year_char ,'YYYY') &lt;= '1996-12-31 00:00:00')</code></p>
  
  <p>or sth like this</p>
  
  <p><code>WHERE (  to_char(to_date(table.year_char ,'YYYY')) &lt;= '1996-12-31 00:00:00')</code></p>
  
  <p>or anything which works</p>