The result of timestamp arithmetic is an INTERVAL datatype. You have an INTERVAL DAY TO SECOND there…
If you want the number of minutes one way would be to use EXTRACT(), for instance:
select extract( minute from interval_difference )
+ extract( hour from interval_difference ) * 60
+ extract( day from interval_difference ) * 60 * 24
from ( select systimestamp - (systimestamp - 1) as interval_difference
from dual )
Alternatively you can use a trick with dates:
select sysdate + (interval_difference * 1440) - sysdate
from (select systimestamp - (systimestamp - 1) as interval_difference
from dual )
The “trick” version works because of the operator order of precedence and the differences between date and timestamp arithmetic.
Initially the operation looks like this:
date + ( interval * number ) - date
As mentioned in the documentation:
Oracle evaluates expressions inside parentheses before evaluating those outside.
So, the first operation performed it to multiply the interval by 1,440. An interval, i.e. a discrete period of time, multiplied by a number is another discrete period of time, see the documentation on datetime and interval arithmetic. So, the result of this operation is an interval, leaving us with:
date + interval - date
The plus operator takes precedence over the minus here. The reason for this could be that an interval minus a date is an invalid operation, but the documentation also implies that this is the case (doesn’t come out and say it). So, the first operation performed is date + interval. A date plus an interval is a date. Leaving just
date - date
As per the documentation, this results in an integer representing the number of days. However, you multiplied the original interval by 1,440, so this now represented 1,440 times the amount of days it otherwise would have. You’re then left with the number of seconds.
It’s worth noting that:
When interval calculations return a datetime value, the result must be an actual datetime value or the database returns an error. For example, the next two statements return errors:
The “trick” method will fail, rarely but it will still fail. As ever it’s best to do it properly.