Working with dates in Teradata - sql

Question

I'm trying to insert some data into a Teradata database, this information has been originally exported from an Oracle instance, but I have a little problem with the dates, here's an example of the data:
CO_ID | CUSTOMER_NAME | JOIN_DATE
1022945 | John Carpenter | 07/03/2018 01:55:24 p.m.
And this is the create table statement:
CREATE TABLE transact (
co_id varchar(50),
user_name varchar(50),
join_date date);
Teradata is throwing error every time I execute the insert statement for example:
expected something between a string and a unicode character ...
How can I insert the information keeping the original format of the date, I have to modify the create table or there's any other trick?
thank you.

Answer 1

In Teradata a date is a date (without the time portion). For the insert you have to convert the input string into a valid date.
Somthing like
select cast('07/03/2018' as date format 'DD/MM/YYYY');
select cast(substr(input.join_date,1,10) as date format 'DD/MM/YYYY');
If you cast a string as date then the format clause is a description how the string parts are used to convert into a internal date format.
If you select from a date column the format clause is used to describe the wanted output format.
select cast( cast('07/03/2018' as date format 'DD/MM/YYYY') as date format 'YYYY-MM-DD')
If you add a format clause to your table definition join_date date 'DD/MM/YYYY', you define the default format for that column, which is used as the output format whenever no explicit format is given.
If you want to use the time portion too, your target column needs to be a timestamp
select cast( cast(regexp_replace('07/03/2018 01:55:24 p.m.','\.m\.', 'M')
as timestamp format 'MM/DD/YYBHH:MI:SS BT') as timestamp format 'YYYY-MM-DDBHH:MI:SS')
format phrase documentation