I have date formats that are as follows:
Date_str
19-12-2007
31-7-2009
3-1-2010
31-11-2009
etc.
I can't do the following:
CONCAT(RIGHT(Date_str,4),SUBSTRING(Date_str,3,3),LEFT(2))
because as you can see above, the dates are not the same length. Is there a way in SQL Server to extract the date as datetime/date?
I also tried
Convert(datetime, Date_str)
but it just threw an error:
The conversion of a varchar data type to a datetime data type resulted
in an out-of-range value.
If 2012+, I would use Try_Convert(). This will return bogus dates as NULL.
Example
Declare #YourTable Table ([Date_str] varchar(50))
Insert Into #YourTable Values
('19-12-2007')
,('31-7-2009')
,('3-1-2010')
,('31-11-2009')
Select *
,try_convert(date,Date_Str,105)
from #YourTable
Returns
Date_str (No column name)
19-12-2007 2007-12-19
31-7-2009 2009-07-31
3-1-2010 2010-01-03
31-11-2009 NULL -- Notice 11/31 is NOT a date
See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/functions/cast-and-convert-transact-sql for date formats
You probably need
CONVERT(DateTime, Date_str, 105)
As I mentioned in the comments, the only realistic solution is to convert that string into a proper date-typed column. The current format doesn't allow date sorting, or search for a range of dates, eg to find entries in the last week, or between one date and the other.
Parsing with CONVERT or TRY_PARSE means that no indexes can be used to speed up queries. Each time :
WHERE CONVERT(Date, Date_str, 105) > '20170101'
is used, the server will have to scan the entire table to convert the data, then filter the rows.
If you can't change the type of the field itself, you can create a persisted computed column that returns the value as a date and add indexes to it. You'll be able to use that column for indexed querying:
alter table SomeTable add date2 as TRY_convert(Actual_Date,date_str,105) PERSISTED
create index IX_SomeTable_ActualDate on SomeTable (Actual_Date)
This will allow you to perform sorting without tricks:
SELECT *
FROM SomeTable
ORDER BY Actual_Date
Or run range queries that take advantage of the IX_SomeTable_ActualDate index:
SELECT *
FROM SomeTable
Where Actual_Date Between DATEADD(d,-7,GETDATE()) AND GETDATE()
If you have 1000 rows, you could get 1000 times better performance.
Existing applications won't even notice the change. Newer queries and applications will be able to take advantage of indexing and sorting
I had a similar problem: my column (<my_date_field>) had date values in the form of
2021-01
2021-02
2021-10
2021-12
and so on, with data type of nvarchar(4000), and I always ran into the Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string. error (when trying e.g. CAST(<my_date_field> AS DATE) or CAST(CAST(<my_date_field> AS VARCHAR(7)) AS DATE) etc.)
I was able to convert them to date with the following code:
SELECT
CONVERT(date, <my_date_field> + '-01') AS first_day_of_month
FROM my_table
which resulted in
2021-08-01
2021-07-01
2021-06-01
2021-05-01
Related
I've got a table that currently has all columns stored as nvarchar(max), so I'm converting all the datatypes to be what they should be. I have a column of dates, however when I run this:
ALTER TABLE Leavers ALTER COLUMN [Actual_Termination_Date] date;
I get
"Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string".
This is relatively normal, so I did the following to investigate:
SELECT DISTINCT TOP 20 [Actual_Termination_Date]
FROM LEAVERS
WHERE ISDATE([Actual_Termination_Date]) = 0
which returned:
NULL
13/04/2017
14/04/2017
17/04/2017
19/04/2017
21/04/2017
23/04/2017
24/04/2017
26/04/2017
28/04/2017
29/03/2017
29/04/2017
30/04/2017
31/03/2017
42795
42797
42813
42817
42820
42825
The null and excel style date formats (e.g. 42795) are no problem, however it's the ones appearing as perfectly normal dates I'm having a problem with. I usually fix issues like this by using one of the following fixes:
SELECT cast([Actual_Termination_Date] - 2 as datetime)
FROM LEAVERS
WHERE ISDATE([Actual_Termination_Date]) = 0
or
SELECT cast(convert(nvarchar,[Actual_Termination_Date], 103) - 2 as datetime)
FROM LEAVERS
WHERE ISDATE([Actual_Termination_Date]) = 0
When these return back the dates as I would expext, I'd then do an UPDATE statement to change them in the table and then convert the column type. However I keep getting an error message telling me that various dates can't be converted such as:
Conversion failed when converting the nvarchar value '21/04/2017' to data type int.
Any thoughts? Thanks!
Probably because of your language setting. For '21/04/2017' to work, you'll need to be using the BRITISH language, or other language that uses dd/MM/yyyy. I suspect you are using ENGLISH which is actually American.
American's use MM/dd/yyyy meaning that '21/04/2017' would mean the 4th day of the 21st month in the year 2017; obviously that doesn't work.
The best method is to use an unambiguous format, regardless of language and data type. For SQL Server that's yyyyMMdd and yyyy-MM-ddThh:mm:ss.nnnnnnn (yyyy-MM-dd and yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss.nnnnnnn are not unambiguous in SQL Server when using the older datetime and smalldatetime data types).
Otherwise you can use CONVERT with a style code:
SELECT CONVERT(date,'21/04/2017', 103)
The problem with your data, however, is that you have values that are in the format dd/MM/yyyy and integer values. The int (not varchar) value 42817 as a datetime in SQL Server is 2017-03-25. On the other hand, if this data came from Excel then the value is 2017-03-23. I am going to assume the data came from Excel, not SQL Server (because the ACE drivers have a habit of reading dates as numbers, because the thing they aren't is "ace").
You'll need to therefore convert the values to an unambiguous format first, so that'll be yyyyMMdd. As we have 2 different types of values, this is a little harder, but still possible:
UPDATE dbo.Leavers
SET Actual_Termination_Date = CONVERT(varchar(8), ISNULL(TRY_CONVERT(date, Actual_Termination_Date, 103), DATEADD(DAY, TRY_CONVERT(int, Actual_Termination_Date),'18991230')), 112);
Then you can alter your table:
ALTER TABLE dbo.Leavers ALTER COLUMN [Actual_Termination_Date] date;
DB<>Fiddle using Michał Turczyn's DML statement.
Put the column into a canonical format first, then convert:
update leavers
set Actual_Termination_Date = try_convert(date, [Actual_Termination_Date], 103);
ALTER TABLE Leavers ALTER COLUMN [Actual_Termination_Date] date;
The update will do an implicit conversion from the date to a string. The alter should be able to "undo" that implicit conversion.
Back up the table before you do this! You are likely to discover that some dates are not valid -- that is pretty much the rule when you store dates as strings although in a small minority of cases, all date strings are actually consistently formatted.
The actual date does not matter. The error happens when you try to subtract 2 from a string:
[Actual_Termination_Date] - 2
The clue comes from the error message:
Conversion failed when converting the nvarchar value '21/04/2017' to data type int.
To fix the problem, use DATEADD after the conversion:
SELECT DATEADD(days, -2, convert(datetime, [Actual_Termination_Date], 103))
You just have inconsistent date format within your column, which is terrible.
Having wrong datatype lead to it, that's why it is so important to have proper data types on columns.
Let's investigate it a little:
-- some test data
declare #tbl table (dt varchar(20));
insert into #tbl values
(NULL),
('13/04/2017'),
('14/04/2017'),
('17/04/2017'),
('19/04/2017'),
('21/04/2017'),
('23/04/2017'),
('24/04/2017'),
('26/04/2017'),
('28/04/2017'),
('29/03/2017'),
('29/04/2017'),
('30/04/2017'),
('31/03/2017'),
('42795'),
('42797'),
('42813'),
('42817'),
('42820'),
('42825');
-- here we handle one format
select convert(date, dt, 103) from #tbl
where len(dt) > 5
or dt is null
-- here we handle excel like format
select dateadd(day, cast(dt as int), '1900-01-01') from #tbl
where len(dt) = 5
So, as you can see you have to apply to different approaches for this task. CASE WHEN statement should fit here nicely, see below SELECT:
select case when len(dt) = 5 then
dateadd(day, cast(dt as int), '1900-01-01')
else convert(date, dt, 103) end
from #tbl
I am working on a project in which dates and times ar stored as a varchar e.g. "30-11-2017,7:30" first date in dd-mm-yyy format and then time separated with a comma. I am trying to filter on it but it is not working correctly kindly guide me how to filter data on date.
select *
from timetrack
where startDateAndTime >= '30-11-2017,7:30'
In attached image records have been shown. When I apply above query it shows no records
You can easily convert your date to SQL datatype datetime uisng parse function, for example select parse('30-11-2017,7:30' as datetime using 'it-IT').
So, in your case, you can apply this function in where clause, so you can easily apply comparison between dates:
select *
from timetrack
where parse(startDateAndTime as datetime using 'it-IT') >= '2017-11-30 07:30:00.000'
Your format is apparently italian :) But you have to specify your own date in the format convertable to datetime, as I have done in above example.
NOTE: parse is available starting with SQL Management Studio 2012.
Unless you are using ISO date format (yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss or close) applying ordering (which inequalities like greater than or equal use) will not work: the date order is disconnected from the string ordering.
You'll need to parse the date and times into a real date time type and then compare to that (details of this depend on which RDBMS you are using).
If, you want to just filter out the date then you could use convert() function for SQL Server
select *
from timetrack
where startDateAndTime >= convert(date, left(#date, 10), 103)
Else convert it to datetime as follow
select *
from timetrack
where startDateAndTime >= convert(datetime, left(#date, 10)+' ' +
reverse(left(reverse(#date), charindex(',', reverse(#date))-1)), 103)
You need the date in a datetime column, Otherwise you can't filter with your current varchar format of your date.
Without changing the existing columns, this can be achieved by making a computed column and making it persisted to optimize performance.
ALTER TABLE test add CstartDateTime
as convert(datetime, substring(startDateAndTime, 7,4)+ substring(startDateAndTime, 4,2)
+ left(startDateAndTime, 2) +' '+ right(startDateAndTime, 5), 112) persisted
Note: this require all rows in the column contains a valid date with the current format
Firstly, you need to check what is the data that is entered in the 'startDateAndTime' column,then you can convert that varchar into date format
If the data in 'startDateAndTime' column has data like '30-11-2017,07:30', you would then have to convert it into date:
SELECT to_date('30-11-2017,07:30','dd-mm-yyyy,hh:mm') from dual; --check this
--Your query:
SELECT to_date(startDateAndTime ,'dd-mm-yyyy,hh:mm') from timetrack;
This is driving me crazy and not sure what I'm missing here..
so here is my data column looks like:
StartDateTime:
---------------
2012-01-17 11:13:46.530
2012-01-17 11:17:22.530
2012-02-17 11:31:22.223
here is my query trying to get:
select * from tablName
where convert(varchar(10), startDateTime, 101) between '2012-01-17' and '2012-01-17'
based on the above I should be getting TWO rows? but it does not, it return zero rows. what will be the correct way of doing?
PS:
I've looked at the MSDN site too:
Your query would only match dates that are between 2012-01-17 00:00:00 and 2012-01-17 00:00:00. So, the only matches would be when the date is exactly 2012-01-17 00:00:00.
Instead, I would do this:
declare #dateInput as DateTime
set #dateInput = '2012-01-17'
select *
from tablName
where startDateTime >= #dateInput
and startDateTime < dateadd(day, 1, #dateInput)
Note: SQL Server 2008+ has a new data type Date with no time component that can make these types of queries more readable.
There is now more information so I'll add a more appropriate answer.
The requirements are now a stored procedure passed a Date type parameter, not DateTime, and the desire is to return rows from a table based on criterion against a DateTime field named StartDateTime...
create procedure dbo.spGetEntriesForOneDay
#DesiredDate DateTime
as
SET NOCOUNT ON;
SET #DesiredDate = DATEADD(day, DATEDIFF(day, 0, #DesiredDate), 0)
SELECT Field1, Field2 -- see note 1
FROM dbo.TableName
WHERE StartDateTime >= #DesiredDate -- see note 2
AND StartDateTime < DATEADD(day, 1, #DesiredDate) -- see note 3
NOTE 1: Don't use * in production code, especially in a stored procedure. Besides being wasteful by returning columns you probably don't need and precluding the optimization of a covering index on a subset of the columns required you would need to recompile this stored procedure whenever the underlying table is altered in order to avoid unpredictable results.
NOTE 2: Avoid wrapping fields in functions. A field not wrapped in a function can potentially be matched by the optimizer to an index while a field wrapped in a function never will.
NOTE 3: #Martin Smith and #RedFilter are correct in that .997 precision assumes DateTime datatype forever; this approach is more future proof because is makes no assumptions of data type precision.
You're using a datetime field (I'm guessing).
Don't forget the time:
select * from tablName
where startDateTime between '2012-01-17' and '2012-01-17 23:59:59.997'
You can use the DateDiff function in the where clause. It would look like this:
select col1, col2 from tablName where DateDiff(day, startDateTime, #DesiredDate) = 0
I'm facing a strange query result and I want to ask you why I'm facing this issue.
I store some datetime data into TestTable as following :
creation_time
-----------------------
2010-07-10 00:01:43.000
2010-07-11 00:01:43.000
2010-07-12 00:01:43.000
This table is created and filled as following :
create table TestTable(creation_time datetime);
Insert into TestTable values('2010-07-10 00:01:43.000');
Insert into TestTable values('2010-07-11 00:01:43.000');
Insert into TestTable values('2010-07-12 00:01:43.000');
when I execute this query , I get two rows only instead of three as I expected:
SELECT * FROM TestTable
WHERE creation_time BETWEEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10),'2010-07-10',111) -- remove time part
and CONVERT(VARCHAR(10),'2010-07-12',111) -- remove time part
Or if I execute this query , the same issue ..
SELECT * FROM TestTable
WHERE CONVERT(datetime,creation_time,111) BETWEEN CONVERT(VARCHAR(10),'2010-07-10',111) -- remove time part
and CONVERT(VARCHAR(10),'2010-07-12',111) -- remove time part
My Question :
Why the last row ('2010-07-12 00:01:43.000') does not appear in
the result even if I set the date range to cover all the day from 2010-07-10 to 2010-07-12?
I use Sql server 2005 express edition with windows xp 32-bits.
I'm trying to don't use a workaround solution such as increasing the date range to cover additional day to get the days I want.
Thanks .
You need to remove the time part from creation_time as well. Just use the same CONVERT if it works.
Currently you're asking if 2010-07-12 00:01:43.000 is less than 2010-07-12 00:00:00.000, which is not true.
it does not show the date because you have removed the time part, which would make the date equivalent to '2010-07-12 00:00:00.000' and since the last row is greater than this, so it is not displaying in the query results.
Your script should look like this:
SELECT *
FROM TestTable
WHERE creation_time BETWEEN
convert(datetime, convert(char, '2010-07-10', 106))-- remove time part
and **DATEADD**(day, 1, convert(datetime, convert(char, '2010-07-**11**', 106))) -- remove time part and add 1 day
This script will return all between 2010-07-10 00:00:00 and 2010-07-12 00:00:00. Basically this means all items created in 2 days: 2010-07-10 and 2010-07-11.
Converting columns in your table for comparison can be costly and cause indexes to not be used. If you have a million rows in your table and you have an index on creation_time, you will be doing an index scan and converting all million values to a string for comparison.
I find it better to use >= the start date and < (end date + 1 day):
SELECT *
FROM TestTable
WHERE creation_time >= '2010-07-10'
AND creation_time < dateadd(day, 1, '2010-07-12')
And the reason your second one may not work is because format 111 uses slashes ("2010/07/10"), format 120 uses dashes ("2010-07-10"). Your converts aren't doing anything to your start and end date because you are converting a string to varchar, not a date. If you did this, it might work, but I would still recommend not doing the conversion:
SELECT * FROM TestTable
WHERE CONVERT(datetime, creation_time, 111) BETWEEN
CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), CONVERT(datetime, '2010-07-10'), 111) -- remove time part
and CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), CONVERT(datetime, '2010-07-12'), 111) -- remove time part
Date/time inclusive between 7/10/2010 and 7/12/2010:
SELECT * FROM TestTable
WHERE creation_time BETWEEN
CONVERT(VARCHAR,'2010-07-10',101) -- remove time part
and CONVERT(VARCHAR,'2010-07-13',101) -- remove time part
I have two tables where column [date] is type of DATETIME2(0).
I have to compare two records only by theirs Date parts (day+month+year), discarding Time parts (hours+minutes+seconds).
How can I do that?
Use the CAST to the new DATE data type in SQL Server 2008 to compare just the date portion:
IF CAST(DateField1 AS DATE) = CAST(DateField2 AS DATE)
A small drawback in Marc's answer is that both datefields have been typecast, meaning you'll be unable to leverage any indexes.
So, if there is a need to write a query that can benefit from an index on a date field, then the following (rather convoluted) approach is necessary.
The indexed datefield (call it DF1) must be untouched by any kind of function.
So you have to compare DF1 to the full range of datetime values for the day of DF2.
That is from the date-part of DF2, to the date-part of the day after DF2.
I.e. (DF1 >= CAST(DF2 AS DATE)) AND (DF1 < DATEADD(dd, 1, CAST(DF2 AS DATE)))
NOTE: It is very important that the comparison is >= (equality allowed) to the date of DF2, and (strictly) < the day after DF2. Also the BETWEEN operator doesn't work because it permits equality on both sides.
PS: Another means of extracting the date only (in older versions of SQL Server) is to use a trick of how the date is represented internally.
Cast the date as a float.
Truncate the fractional part
Cast the value back to a datetime
I.e. CAST(FLOOR(CAST(DF2 AS FLOAT)) AS DATETIME)
Though I upvoted the answer marked as correct. I wanted to touch on a few things for anyone stumbling upon this.
In general, if you're filtering specifically on Date values alone. Microsoft recommends using the language neutral format of ymd or y-m-d.
Note that the form '2007-02-12' is considered language-neutral only
for the data types DATE, DATETIME2, and DATETIMEOFFSET.
To do a date comparison using the aforementioned approach is simple. Consider the following, contrived example.
--112 is ISO format 'YYYYMMDD'
declare #filterDate char(8) = CONVERT(char(8), GETDATE(), 112)
select
*
from
Sales.Orders
where
CONVERT(char(8), OrderDate, 112) = #filterDate
In a perfect world, performing any manipulation to the filtered column should be avoided because this can prevent SQL Server from using indexes efficiently. That said, if the data you're storing is only ever concerned with the date and not time, consider storing as DATETIME with midnight as the time. Because:
When SQL Server converts the literal to the filtered column’s type, it
assumes midnight when a time part isn’t indicated. If you want such a
filter to return all rows from the specified date, you need to ensure
that you store all values with midnight as the time.
Thus, assuming you are only concerned with date, and store your data as such. The above query can be simplified to:
--112 is ISO format 'YYYYMMDD'
declare #filterDate char(8) = CONVERT(char(8), GETDATE(), 112)
select
*
from
Sales.Orders
where
OrderDate = #filterDate
You can try this one
CONVERT(DATE, GETDATE()) = CONVERT(DATE,'2017-11-16 21:57:20.000')
I test that for MS SQL 2014 by following code
select case when CONVERT(DATE, GETDATE()) = CONVERT(DATE,'2017-11-16 21:57:20.000') then 'ok'
else '' end
You may use DateDiff and compare by day.
DateDiff(dd,#date1,#date2) > 0
It means #date2 > #date1
For example :
select DateDiff(dd, '01/01/2021 10:20:00', '02/01/2021 10:20:00')
has the result : 1
For Compare two date like MM/DD/YYYY to MM/DD/YYYY .
Remember First thing column type of Field must be dateTime.
Example : columnName : payment_date dataType : DateTime .
after that you can easily compare it.
Query is :
select * from demo_date where date >= '3/1/2015' and date <= '3/31/2015'.
It very simple ......
It tested it.....