How is the to_date function used in pgsql?

In PostgreSQL, the to_date function is used to convert a string into a date value. Its syntax is as follows:

to_date(text, text)

The first parameter is a string representing a date, and the second parameter is a pattern string specifying the date format. For example, to convert the string ‘2022-10-25’ to a date value, you can use the following statement:

SELECT to_date('2022-10-25', 'YYYY-MM-DD');

This will return a date value of 2022-10-25. Here, ‘YYYY-MM-DD’ is a pattern string for the date format, which instructs PostgreSQL to parse the year, month, and day parts in the input string.

Please note that the to_date function can also accept other date format patterns to correctly parse the date information in the input string.