Comparing A List of Dates - sql

In my SQL WHERE caluse, I'm checking to see if a Report Date is in one of the list of dates which I am passing to my SQL stored procedure.
WHERE REPORT_RUN_DATE IN (#REPORT_RUN_DATES)
Let's say #REPORT_RUN_DATE IS EQUAL TO '11/09/2013'
That did not match (no records returned) so then, looking at the compare, I'm comparing a date field with a date that has already been converted to a string before being passed into the stored procedure. So then I tried.
WHERE CONVERT(VARCHAR, REPORT_RUN_DATE, 101) IN (#REPORT_RUN_DATES)
Same issue. No match. No records returned. The reason why the dates are passed in as a string is there may be times I'll be passing in multiple dates e.g. ''11/09/2013','11/14/2013'' which is why I am using the IN clause. We do not store any time portions of the date so I'm only dealing with the date data type and not datetime or smalldatetime.
Most of examples of using the IN CLAUSE in T-SQL that I found had to do with integers or strings but not dates. I'm passing my parameters via ADO.NET using VB.Net 2012. Stepping through my code I know the values are passed correctly and that the values should return a result set.
Any advise on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated...

You can't just pass in multiple values like that. You'll end up passing a string as a single value, then SQL will compare the date column as a string to the value passed in:
Here are some options:
Use multiple date parameters (2?, 3?)
Create a table-value parameter type for the stored procedure
Call the sproc multiple times with different dates (loop in your VB code)
Generate SQL in VB instead of calling a sproc (need to be cautious of SQL injection)
reverse the comparison and use LIKE:
WHERE #REPORT_RUN_DATES LIKE '%' + CONVERT(DATE, REPORT_RUN_DATE, 101) + '%'

Related

DateValue equivalent that works in SQL when some records can do a valid conversion and others not?

I have a set of date where some of the records have a valid convertible to date text field and other records which are not. For example, "1/1/2019", next record may be "January 1, 1919", next may be "pre-2010", etc.
I need to convert the valid values to a date field.
In MSAccess I can do an update, Set DateField to DateValue(txtDateField) to convert the rows that work to convert. Access would leave DateField as Null for the bad non date type text, but convert the good rows, which is the majority.
How do I do this in SQL? I have tried the convert or cast function but it errors out in update or even select because some of the rows aren't valid. How do I select the valid rows?
Also, FYI, I don't even know what the data values actually are. I just need to convert the ones which are valid and leave the ones with bad values as they are.
Basically user form allowed entry of text into a field which they now want to search on by date. The good values can be easily converted in Access via the DateValue function, any way to do it in SQL?

SQL Server ISDATE() Error

I have a table and need to verify that a certain column contains only dates. I'm trying to count the number of records that are not follow a date format. If I check a field that I did not define as type "date" then the query works. However, when I check a field that I defined as a date it does not.
Query:
SELECT
count(case when ISDATE(Date_Field) = 0 then 1 end) as 'Date_Error'
FROM [table]
Column definition:
Date_Field(date, null)
Sample data: '2010-06-27'
Error Message:
Argument data type date is invalid for argument 1 of isdate function.
Any insight as to why this query is not working for fields I defined as dates?
Thanks!
If you defined the column with the Date type, it IS a Date. Period. This check is completely unnecessary.
What you may want to do is look for NULL values in the column:
SELECT SUM(case when Date_Field IS NULL THEN 1 ELSE 0 end) as 'Date_Error' FROM [table]
I also sense an additional misunderstanding about how Date fields, including DateTime and DateTime2, work in Sql Server. The values in these fields are not stored as a string in any format at all. They are stored in a binary/numeric format, and only shown as a string as a convenience in your query tool. And that's a good thing. If you want the date in a particular format, use the CONVERT() function in your query, or even better, let your client application handle the formatting.
ISDATE() only evaluates against a STRING-like parameter (varchar, nvarachar, char,...)
To be sure, ISDATE()'s parameter should come wrapped in a cast() function.
i.e.
Select isdate(cast(parameter as nvarchar))
should return either 1 or 0, even if it's a MULL value.
Hope this helps.
IsDate takes a character string or exression that yeilds a character string as it's argument
The problem is this method ISDATE() only admits arguments of type datetime and smalldatetime within the "time" types, so it won´t work if you are using date type.
Also if you use date as type for that field, you won´t have to check the information there because it won´t admit other type of field.
You shoul only check for null values in your column, that´s all.

How to select all ms access table records based on date

i'm new to MS Access..
one of my Access table CHECKOUT having a column name CHECK-TIME with Date/time data type
values in that column are like 7/15/2013 10:56:22 AM,9/19/2013 6:54:37 PM....
i want to select the data based on date like `7/15/2013'
how to write the query for this task ???
thanks in advance..
First off, the way to specify date literals is with hash (#) not any form of quote or backtick.
Secondly, you can't do LIKE comparisons with dates, not that I've ever seen anyway.
Thirdly, it's always best to specify dates in yyyy-mm-dd format because it's an unambiguous format.
This example should give you what you need:
SELECT
*
FROM
CHECKOUT
WHERE
datevalue([CHECK-TIME]) = #2013-07-15#
The datevalue() function takes a parameter, usually a string but in this case a datetime, and converts it to a date, thus stripping off the time. This allows us to check for equality against a date literal.

Date range comparison using varchar columns in Teradata

I've been tasked to take a calendar date range value from a form front-end and use it to, among other things, feed a query in a Teradata table that does not have a datetime column. Instead the date is aggregated from two varchar columns: one for year (CY = current year, LY = last year, LY-1, etc), and one for the date with format MonDD (like Jan13, Dec08, etc).
I'm using Coldfusion for the form and result page, so I have the ability to dynamically create the query, but I can't think of a good way to do it for all possible cases. Any ideas? Even year differences aside, I can't think of anything outside of a direct comparison on each day in the range with a potential ton of separate OR statements in the query. I'm light on SQL knowledge - maybe there's a better way to script it in the SQL itself using some sort of conversion on the two varchar columns to form an actual date range where date comparisons could then be made?
Here is some SQL that will take the VARCHAR date value and perform some basic manipulations on it to get you started:
SELECT CAST(CAST('Jan18'||TRIM(EXTRACT(YEAR FROM CURRENT_DATE)) AS CHAR(9)) AS DATE FORMAT 'MMMDDYYYY') AS BaseDate_
, CASE WHEN Col1 = 'CY'
THEN BaseDate_
WHEN Col1 = 'LY'
THEN ADD_MONTHS(BaseDate_, -12)
WHEN Col1 = 'LY-1'
THEN ADD_MONTHS(BaseDate_, -24)
ELSE BaseDate_
END AS DateModified_
FROM {MyDB}.{MyTable};
The EXTRACT() function allows you to take apart a DATE, TIME, or TIMESTAMP value.
You have you use TRIM() around the EXTRACT to get rid of the whitespace that is added converting the DATEPART to a CHAR data type. Teradata is funny with dates and often requires a double CAST() to get things sorted out.
The CASE statement simply takes the encoded values you suggested will be used and uses the ADD_MONTHS() function to manipulate the date. Dates are INTEGER in Teradata so you can also add INTEGER values to them to move the date by a whole day. Unlike Oracle, you can't add fractional values to manipulate the TIME portion of a TIMESTAMP. DATE != TIMESTAMP in Teradata.
Rob gave you an sql approach. Alternatively you can use ColdFusion to generate values for the columns you have. Something like this might work.
sampleDate = CreateDate(2010,4,12); // this simulates user input
if (year(sampleDate) is year(now())
col1Value = 'CY';
else if (year(now()) - year(sampleDate) is 1)
col1Value = 'LY'
else
col1Value = 'LY-' & DateDiff("yyyy", sampleDate, now());
col2Value = DateFormat(sampleDate, 'mmmdd');
Then you send col1Value and col2Value to your query as parameters.

character_length Teradata SQL Assistant

I have to run column checks for data consistency and the only thing that is throwing off my code is checking for character lengths for dates between certain parameters.
SEL
sum(case when ( A.date is null or (character_length(A.date) >8)) then 1 else 0 end ) as Date
from
table A
;
The date format of the column is YYYY-MM-DD, and the type is DA. When I run the script in SQL Assistant, I get an error 3580 "Illegal use of CHARACTERS, MCHARACTERS, or OCTET_LENGTH functions."
Preliminary research suggests that SQL Assistant has issues with the character_length function, but I don't know how to adjust the code to make it run.
with chareter length are you trying to get the memory used? Becuase if so that is constant for a date field. If you are trying to get the length of the string representation i think LENGTH(A.date) will suffice. Unfortanatly since teradata will pad zeros on conversions to string, I think this might always return 10.
UPDATE :
Okay so if you want a date in a special 'form' when you output it you need to select it properly. In teradata as with most DBs Date are not store in strings, but rather as ints, counting days from a given 'epoch' date for the database (for example the epoch might be 01/01/0000). Each date type in teradata has a format parameter, which places in the record header instructions on how to format the output on select. By default a date format is set to this DATE FROMAT 'MM/DD/YYYY' I believe. You can change that by casting.
Try SELECT cast(cast(A.date as DATE FORMAT 'MM-DD-YYYY') as CHAR(10)) FROM A. and see what happens. There should be no need to validate the form of the dates past a small sample to see if the format is correct. The second cast forces the database to perform the conversion and use the format header specified. Other wise what you might see is the database will pass the date in a date form to SQL Assitant and sql assitant will perform the conversion on the application level, using the format specified in its own setting rather then the one set in the database.