Is there a more elegant way to compare timestamps without milliseconds? - sql

I have a table AT_OBJECT with two TIMESTAMP nullable fields MODIFIED and CURR_MODIFIED. I need to compare them but milliseconds should not be counted. As of now I use SQL request:
SELECT
*
FROM
at_object o
WHERE
DATEDIFF(SECOND,
COALESCE(o.modified, cast('01.01.2000 00:00:00.0000' as TIMESTAMP)),
COALESCE(o.curr_modified, cast('01.01.2000 00:00:00.0000' as TIMESTAMP))) > 0
It works but looks kind of ugly. Is there a better way to compare timestamps without milliseconds?

You can use a formula like below to remove the milliseconds (actually convert all ms to zero)
DATEADD(ms, -DATEPART(ms, date), date)
So
.
.
.
WHERE
DATEADD(ms, -DATEPART(ms, date1), date1) = DATEADD(ms, -DATEPART(ms, date2), date2)
And you could clean that all up by replacing it with a user defined function (hopefully my syntax is correct I don't have a Firebird installation here)
CREATE FUNCTION removeMs
(
#inDateTime
)
RETURNS DateTime
AS
BEGIN
RETURN DATEADD(ms, -DATEPART(ms, #inDateTime), #inDateTime)
END
then nice and clean!
WHERE
removeMs(date1) = removeMs(date2)
Edit: For Firebird the basic concept should work but the functions are slightly different
DATEPART -> EXTRACT(MILLISECOND FROM date1)
DATEADD -> DATEADD(MILLISECOND, -1 * EXTRACT(MILLISECOND FROM date1), date1)
all of which can be cleaned up with a user defined function (hopefully my syntax is correct)

If you don't need the milliseconds part at all (never in your software / queries) then the easiest solution would be to store the timestamps with appropriate precision, ie without millisecons. At the DDL it would be like:
CREATE TABLE T (
Foo TIMESTAMP DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(0) NOT NULL
);
Note the CURRENT_TIMESTAMP(0) - this takes care of the default value inserted by engine when user doesn't supply the value. If the field(s) are sometimes filled by the user then you also have to write BEFORE INSERT OR UPDATE triggers which "delete" the milliseconds part from timestamps.

Convert to timestamp and ignore milliseconds using date_trunc function. Refer below query.
This where clause worked for me.
date_trunc('seconds', "column name"::timestamp)= date_trunc( 'seconds', '2022-07-05 19:10:29'::timestamp) ;

Related

round GETDATE (SQL Server)

I have a function which is working fine in MySQL
round((now()-ts/60) as tdiff
(round the result of subtracting the current datetime from ts (also a datetime) divided by 60)
Attempting (and failing) to convert this for SQL Server.
Tried -
round((GETDATE()-ts/60) as tdiff
but that results in round function requires 2 or 3 parameters (which to me it does), so modified to -
round((GETDATE()-ts/60,0) as tdiff
but that results in the datatypes (GETDATE and ts) are incompatible in the subtract operator.
So then I attempted to cast both GETDATE and ts as date and that made no difference.
ts is a conventional datetime i.e.
2918-04-20 11:05:09 and I assumed GETDATE returned the same format.
As an example if GETDATE is today and ts is 2018-04-20 11:05:09 then tdiff is
6850891 (round effectively removes the dashes and colons and concatenates the datetime producing 20180420110509 for 2018-04-20 11:05:09 and 20180831164000 for 2018-08-31 16:40:00 and then divides by 60 to get 6850891.
Is there a remedy for this?
Regards, Ralph
GETDATE(), as per the documentation, returns a datetime. A datetime is accurate to 1/300 of a second, and it's accuracy cannot be changed.
If you want the time accurate to a second, you need to convert to a datetime2(0):
SELECT CONVERT(datetime2(0),GETDATE());
Also, however, don't use syntax like GETDATE()-ts. use the functions DATEADD and DATEDIFF for date maths.
I've no idea what GETDATE()-ts/60 is trying to acheive. Perhaps the number of minutes between the 2? DATEDIFF counts the "ticks" between 2 dates/times, thus DATEDIFF(MINUTE,'00:00:59','00:01:00') would return 1, despite there only being 1 second between the 2 times. This is because the minute value has "ticked" once (from 0 to 1). Therefore you might want to use DATEDIFF(SECOND,'00:00:59','00:01:00') / 60. This would return 0, as 1 / 60 in integer math is 0 (as is 59 / 60).
I think you want to use the DATEDIFF function:
DATEDIFF ( datepart , startdate , enddate )
DATEDIFF ( second, ts, GETDATE())
DATEDIFF ( second, ts, GETDATE())
DATEDIFF ( minute, ts, GETDATE())
DATEDIFF ( hour, ts, GETDATE())
The first argument tells it which increment of time to return.
If you are trying to find the difference between two values, then use datediff(). For instance:
select datediff(day, getdate(), ts)
gets the difference in days.
date_diff() or a related function would also be the right approach in MySQL.
sorry, I don't know if I have understand the question, you need to do date-date/60 and round the result?
In this case you have to change the minus ("-") with the DATEDIFF("Type return example DAYS", GETDATE(), ts).
So you will have ROUND((DATEDIFF(DAY,GETDATE(),ts)/60,0)
Please try and let me know if it will works for you
Bye

Informix SQL Compare DateTime value on Where Statement

I have a datetime field called entrytimestamp, with content of the field is for example: 2014-01-07 16:20:00. I would like to query all the data that has entrytimestamp after 09:00:00 o'clock, regardless what date it was.
I have a prototype query:
select *
from trading
where to_char(entrytimestamp, "%H%M%S") >= "090000"
But I think it is logically a mistake, because it will compare the text string, not the sequence value. What is the right way to do it?
Use the EXTEND() function to extract the time part:
select *
from mytable
where extend(entrytimestamp, hour to second) > '09:00:00'
I dont know if it performs well,
but you could compare directly with the time portion of the datetime,
i think a cast here should perform pretty fast (just cuts off the date)
select *
from (select getdate() as mydatetime) as data
where cast(mydatetime as time) > cast('09:00:00' as time)
EDIT, just noticed this was for Informix SQL, so not sure it works then, Sorry

How to only check the time on datetime fields but ignore the date?

I have a column that stores data in datetime format. I want to check for all instances where the time part of this column is not equal to 00:00:00:000 - the date does not matter.
Basically, if time() was a function, something like this:
SELECT *
FROM progen.DY
WHERE TIME(DY_DATE) <> '00:00:00:000'
How do I go about doing this?
You only need a minor tweak on what you already have.
SELECT *
FROM progen.DY
WHERE TIME(DY_DATE) <> '00:00:00:000'
Use CONVERT to change your DATETIME to a TIME.
SELECT *
FROM progen.DY
WHERE CONVERT(TIME, DY_DATE) <> '00:00:00:000'
Another way is to convert it to different datatype, eg
SELECT *
FROM progen.DY
WHERE CAST(DY_DATE as float) - CAST(DY_DATE as int) > 0
SQLFiddle Demo
I do this all the time when trying to see if a table's column should be turned into a date instead of a datetime, which is really the answer.
select *
from progen.dy
where cast(dy_date as Date) <> dy_date
the cast removes the time and datetime has higher precedence, so when compared, if the are unequal then it has a time value. Same thing could be done with a cast to time, with a bit of different syntax.
Use DATEDIFF and DATEADD to instead get the date part of the datetime. Compare the column against the date only, and it will return those rows that have a non-zero time.
The way this works is that we first calculate the difference (in days) between the epoch and the value. We add that number to the epoch to create a new datetime. Since the result of DATEDIFF is an integer, any time component gets rounded off.
SELECT *
FROM Table
WHERE DateColumn <> DATEADD(d, DATEDIFF(d, 0, DateColumn), 0)
The time function could then be implemented by the following, not that I recommend it for this specific scenario:
SELECT DATEDIFF(minute, DATEADD(d, DATEDIFF(d, 0, DateColumn), 0), DateColumn) as MinutesIntoDay,
-- or, if you require higher precision
DATEDIFF(second, DATEADD(d, DATEDIFF(d, 0, DateColumn), 0), DateColumn) as MinutesIntoDay
FROM Table
Edit: As mentioned in other answers, you can cast to DATE to achieve the same effect as DATEADD(d, DATEDIFF(d, 0, DateColumn), 0), which cleans up nicely. However, DATE was only added in SQL Server 2008, whereas the formula has compatibility back to at least SQL 2000. So if you need the backwards compatibility or are dealing with SQL CE, casting to DATE is unavailable.
SELECT *
FROM progen.DY
WHERE CONVERT(TIME, DY_DATE - CONVERT(DATE, DY_DATE)) > '00:00'

Compare DATETIME and DATE ignoring time portion

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.....

Best approach to remove time part of datetime in SQL Server

Which method provides the best performance when removing the time portion from a datetime field in SQL Server?
a) select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, getdate()), 0)
or
b) select cast(convert(char(11), getdate(), 113) as datetime)
The second method does send a few more bytes either way but that might not be as important as the speed of the conversion.
Both also appear to be very fast, but there might be a difference in speed when dealing with hundreds-of-thousands or more rows?
Also, is it possible that there are even better methods to get rid of the time portion of a datetime in SQL?
Strictly, method a is the least resource intensive:
a) select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, getdate()), 0)
Proven less CPU intensive for the same total duration a million rows by someone with way too much time on their hands: Most efficient way in SQL Server to get a date from date+time?
I saw a similar test elsewhere with similar results too.
I prefer the DATEADD/DATEDIFF because:
varchar is subject to language/dateformat issues
Example: Why is my CASE expression non-deterministic?
float relies on internal storage
it extends to work out first day of month, tomorrow, etc by changing "0" base
Edit, Oct 2011
For SQL Server 2008+, you can CAST to date i.e. CAST(getdate() AS date). Or just use date datatype so no time to remove.
Edit, Jan 2012
A worked example of how flexible this is: Need to calculate by rounded time or date figure in sql server
Edit, May 2012
Do not use this in WHERE clauses and the like without thinking: adding a function or CAST to a column invalidates index usage. See number 2 here Common SQL Programming Mistakes
Now, this does have an example of later SQL Server optimiser versions managing CAST to date correctly, but generally it will be a bad idea ...
Edit, Sep 2018, for datetime2
DECLARE #datetime2value datetime2 = '02180912 11:45' --this is deliberately within datetime2, year 0218
DECLARE #datetime2epoch datetime2 = '19000101'
select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, #datetime2epoch, #datetime2value), #datetime2epoch)
In SQL Server 2008, you can use:
CONVERT(DATE, getdate(), 101)
Of-course this is an old thread but to make it complete.
From SQL 2008 you can use DATE datatype so you can simply do:
SELECT CONVERT(DATE,GETDATE())
In SQL Server 2008, there is a DATE datetype (also a TIME datatype).
CAST(GetDate() as DATE)
or
declare #Dt as DATE = GetDate()
SELECT CAST(FLOOR(CAST(getdate() AS FLOAT)) AS DATETIME)
...is not a good solution, per the comments below.
I would delete this answer, but I'll leave it here as a counter-example since I think the commenters' explanation of why it's not a good idea is still useful.
Here's yet another answer, from another duplicate question:
SELECT CAST(CAST(getutcdate() - 0.50000004 AS int) AS datetime)
This magic number method performs slightly faster than the DATEADD method. (It looks like ~10%)
The CPU Time on several rounds of a million records:
DATEADD MAGIC FLOAT
500 453
453 360
375 375
406 360
But note that these numbers are possibly irrelevant because they are already VERY fast. Unless I had record sets of 100,000 or more, I couldn't even get the CPU Time to read above zero.
Considering the fact that DateAdd is meant for this purpose and is more robust, I'd say use DateAdd.
SELECT CAST(CAST(GETDATE() AS DATE) AS DATETIME)
I really like:
[date] = CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), GETDATE(), 120)
The 120 format code will coerce the date into the ISO 8601 standard:
'YYYY-MM-DD' or '2017-01-09'
Super easy to use in dplyr (R) and pandas (Python)!
BEWARE!
Method a) and b) does NOT always have the same output!
select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, '2013-12-31 23:59:59.999'), 0)
Output: 2014-01-01 00:00:00.000
select cast(convert(char(11), '2013-12-31 23:59:59.999', 113) as datetime)
Output: 2013-12-31 00:00:00.000
(Tested on MS SQL Server 2005 and 2008 R2)
EDIT: According to Adam's comment, this cannot happen if you read the date value from the table, but it can happen if you provide your date value as a literal (example: as a parameter of a stored procedure called via ADO.NET).
See this question:
How can I truncate a datetime in SQL Server?
Whatever you do, don't use the string method. That's about the worst way you could do it.
Already answered but ill throw this out there too...
this suposedly also preforms well but it works by throwing away the decimal (which stores time) from the float and returning only whole part (which is date)
CAST(
FLOOR( CAST( GETDATE() AS FLOAT ) )
AS DATETIME
)
second time I found this solution... i grabbed this code off
CAST(round(cast(getdate()as real),0,1) AS datetime)
This method does not use string function. Date is basically a real datatype with digits before decimal are fraction of a day.
this I guess will be faster than a lot.
For me the code below is always a winner:
SELECT CONVERT(DATETIME, FLOOR(CONVERT(FLOAT,GETDATE())));
select CONVERT(char(10), GetDate(),126)
Strip time on inserts/updates in the first place. As for on-the-fly conversion, nothing can beat a user-defined function maintanability-wise:
select date_only(dd)
The implementation of date_only can be anything you like - now it's abstracted away and calling code is much much cleaner.
I think you mean
cast(floor(cast(getdate()as float))as datetime)
real is only 32-bits, and could lose some information
This is fastest
cast(cast(getdate()+x-0.5 as int)as datetime)
...though only about 10% faster(about 0.49 microseconds CPU vs. 0.58)
This was recommended, and takes the same time in my test just now:
DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, getdate()), 0)
In SQL 2008, the SQL CLR function is about 5 times faster than using a SQL function would be, at 1.35 microseconds versus 6.5 microsections, indicating much lower function-call overhead for a SQL CLR function versus a simple SQL UDF.
In SQL 2005, the SQL CLR function is 16 times faster, per my testing, versus this slow function:
create function dateonly ( #dt datetime )
returns datetime
as
begin
return cast(floor(cast(#dt as float))as int)
end
How about select cast(cast my_datetime_field as date) as datetime)? This results in the same date, with the time set to 00:00, but avoids any conversion to text and also avoids any explicit numeric rounding.
I think that if you stick strictly with TSQL that this is the fastest way to truncate the time:
select convert(datetime,convert(int,convert(float,[Modified])))
I found this truncation method to be about 5% faster than the DateAdd method. And this can be easily modified to round to the nearest day like this:
select convert(datetime,ROUND(convert(float,[Modified]),0))
Here I made a function to remove some parts of a datetime for SQL Server. Usage:
First param is the datetime to be stripped off.
Second param is a char:
s: rounds to seconds; removes milliseconds
m: rounds to minutes; removes seconds and milliseconds
h: rounds to hours; removes minutes, seconds and milliseconds.
d: rounds to days; removes hours, minutes, seconds and milliseconds.
Returns the new datetime
create function dbo.uf_RoundDateTime(#dt as datetime, #part as char)
returns datetime
as
begin
if CHARINDEX( #part, 'smhd',0) = 0 return #dt;
return cast(
Case #part
when 's' then convert(varchar(19), #dt, 126)
when 'm' then convert(varchar(17), #dt, 126) + '00'
when 'h' then convert(varchar(14), #dt, 126) + '00:00'
when 'd' then convert(varchar(14), #dt, 112)
end as datetime )
end
Just in case anyone is looking in here for a Sybase version since several of the versions above didn't work
CAST(CONVERT(DATE,GETDATE(),103) AS DATETIME)
Tested in I SQL v11 running on Adaptive Server 15.7
If possible, for special things like this, I like to use CLR functions.
In this case:
[Microsoft.SqlServer.Server.SqlFunction]
public static SqlDateTime DateOnly(SqlDateTime input)
{
if (!input.IsNull)
{
SqlDateTime dt = new SqlDateTime(input.Value.Year, input.Value.Month, input.Value.Day, 0, 0, 0);
return dt;
}
else
return SqlDateTime.Null;
}
I, personally, almost always use User Defined functions for this if dealing with SQL Server 2005 (or lower version), however, it should be noted that there are specific drawbacks to using UDF's, especially if applying them to WHERE clauses (see below and the comments on this answer for further details). If using SQL Server 2008 (or higher) - see below.
In fact, for most databases that I create, I add these UDF's in right near the start since I know there's a 99% chance I'm going to need them sooner or later.
I create one for "date only" & "time only" (although the "date only" one is by far the most used of the two).
Here's some links to a variety of date-related UDF's:
Essential SQL Server Date, Time and DateTime Functions
Get Date Only Function
That last link shows no less than 3 different ways to getting the date only part of a datetime field and mentions some pros and cons of each approach.
If using a UDF, it should be noted that you should try to avoid using the UDF as part of a WHERE clause in a query as this will greatly hinder performance of the query. The main reason for this is that using a UDF in a WHERE clause renders that clause as non-sargable, which means that SQL Server can no longer use an index with that clause in order to improve the speed of query execution. With reference to my own usage of UDF's, I'll frequently use the "raw" date column within the WHERE clause, but apply the UDF to the SELECTed column. In this way, the UDF is only applied to the filtered result-set and not every row of the table as part of the filter.
Of course, the absolute best approach for this is to use SQL Server 2008 (or higher) and separate out your dates and times, as the SQL Server database engine is then natively providing the individual date and time components, and can efficiently query these independently without the need for a UDF or other mechanism to extract either the date or time part from a composite datetime type.
I would use:
CAST
(
CAST(YEAR(DATEFIELD) as varchar(4)) + '/' CAST(MM(DATEFIELD) as varchar(2)) + '/' CAST(DD(DATEFIELD) as varchar(2)) as datetime
)
Thus effectively creating a new field from the date field you already have.