I know that it is possible to reformat the DateTime data type of the current date and time by using select convert. However, I havent been able to find a method to reformat an existing column (DateTime data type) to: hh:mm:ss yyyy/mm/dd. Or even better, I would like to reformat it to show time only. I dont want to simply convert to time data type because I am working with a chart that accepts either Date or Date time. But what I really want to display on that specific axis of the chart is time. Is there any way to reformat DateTime to my requirements? Thanks.
SQL Server's convert function can take an optional style argument depending upon the datatype. This is how you can get a datetime converted to a string in a variety of formats. For example, try running:
select convert(varchar(30), getdate(), 108) -- returns hh:mi:ss
You can replace getdate() in this example with a column name as well.
There are many styles available, as shown in the documentation.
Note that you will be returning a varchar, so you may want to sort by the original column's datatype.
You can use SET DATEFORMAT but this will change all DateTime's on your SQL Server. You can do some custom formatting, but it will convert the DateTime into a VarChar, so you won't be able to treat it as a DateTime.
SET DATEFORMAT: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms189491.aspx
I'm not sure if you will be able to use the format you're asking about, though.
Related
I have a wrong date in the database 2022-10-14 12:59:00 , I want to change it to 2022-14-10 12:59:00. Is there a direct convert function I could use, or do I have to split and put the date correctly. Just trying to get some ideas to do this the easy way. I tried the convert functions but I guess the original date as to be corrected first is it?
You can use the CONVERT() function to go from a date type to a string with a particular "style". There are styles for different presentation formats to represent the different date presentation formats around the world.
To make this work, the data needs to be in a date type, not just a string. (or you can convert from a string type to a date type, then convert back to a string).
Date style descriptions
I have a scenario to cast string date into date format. But the date string is not in a straight format, so the conversion throws error. So what I tried is
set dateformat dmy
before the casting in sql and it worked without any issue.
But the trouble is I need this to implement in a view or function. But the disappointing part, function or view doesn't support set dateformat with which it says as side effecting operator
So how can I specify the date format of the given string before casting in a function or view?
The third parameter of CONVERT() allows to provide a format type.
Assuming your SET DATEFORMAT DMY I take you've to deal with dates like "1/2/2000", meaning the first of February in 2000.
Try this:
DECLARE #d VARCHAR(100)='1/2/2000';
SELECT CONVERT(DATE,#d,104)
The 104 is the German type with a 4-digit year. If this does not fit your needs, you can follow the link to find a better suiting format.
If you need further help, please provide samples of your actual dates.
Hint: You should always store a value in a column with the appropriate type. Storing dates as strings will make things slow and opens a lot of error sources...
As Damien wrote in his comment to the question, ideally you should not mess around with string representations of datetime in the first place - you should be using proper data types - and since you asked about creating a view, it can only mean that somewhere in your database there's a datetime value stored as a string.
The solution to this situation is to change the way you are storing this value - use DateTime2 for datetime values, Date for date-only values, or Time for time-of-day values.
Further reading - Aaron Bertrand's Bad habits to kick : choosing the wrong data type
Assuming you can't change the database design, read the rest of this answer.
You can't use set dateformat on a view or a function, but you can use convert instead of cast to change the string representation of a datetime value into an actual datetime value, assuming the string representation has one of the supported date formats (there are quite a few of them, so usually it shouldn't be a problem).
If your string representation of the datetime is in a format that is not supported by the built in convert function, you might need to do some extra work in the form of string manipulation to either change it into a supported format, or (in the harder case) separate the string representation to parts and then use datetimefromparts.
If you could provide the actual format you are using in your string representation of the datetime format I can probably edit this answer to show you exactly how to do it.
SELECT CONVERT(varchar(10),CAST('07/01/2018' AS DATE),23)
Result
2018-07-01
Not sure what you mean by, "date string is not in a straight format". Examples will help.
Have you tried parsing, instead of casting?
SELECT
TRY_PARSE(thedate AS datetime) as justParse
,TRY_PARSE(thedate AS datetime USING 'en-US') as parseUS
,TRY_PARSE(thedate AS datetime USING 'en-GB') as parseGB
,try_cast(thedate as date) as tryCast
FROM (values
('07/01/2018')
,('01/07/2018')
,('07 jan 2018')
,('jan 07 2018')
,('Monday, 7 January 2019')
)d(thedate)
I have a view in SQL Server 2012 and there is a column of containing dates×. I have been trying to convert the date column as '20/10/2018 18:00' format (no second) by using this feature and lots of approaches on Stackoverflow and other web sites:
FORMAT(StartDate, 'dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm')
However, as the data type of this column is Varchar (String) rather than DateTime, I encountered some problems in C# side and I want to perform this conversion on the database side without changing the data type of the generated format). Is there any way to achieve this?
SQL Server doesn't have a "date format" per se. The formatting of datetime fields is only performed when presenting the datetime to an output - that is, when converting it to a string.
There is a default format for presentation that is controlled by the server's collation setting. However, internally the date is stored as a numeric value (actual format varies by type, as datetime and datetime2 have different internal formats), and that value has no associated formatting.
You can store your date without seconds by using a smalldatetime field, or by manipulating the input data to trim off the seconds value. But, unless you store your date as a string, which is absolutely not recommended, you will not be able to save an output format different from the default collation-driven format in a datetime field.
I would migrate that column to a datetime (or some variant) if possible. Alternatively if that would affect too many things, you could make a computed column on the table which converts the string date you have to a datetime. That way the database doesn't have to care about the formatting at all; it just works with the proper DateTime data type.
If neither of those is an option, you can just pas the string to C# and use DateTime.TryParse() to convert it to a C# DateTime object.
In either case, it's preferable to work with the date as a DateTime up until the very last minute where you need to format it for display somewhere.
i have a problem in converting a string date value into valid date format in pentaho-data-itegration .could someone help me to convert string date'08-Mar-2017' into date format (2017-03-08 00:00:00) in pentaho.
Date do not have a format in PDI.
To convert the '08-Mar-2017' string to a date, use the Select value step, Meta-data tab, and tell your field should be of type Date, and the conversion format is dd-MMM-yyyy (type it, as it not on the drop down list).
To convert the date to the '2017-03-08 00:00:00' string, use the Select value step, Meta-data tab, and tell your field should be of type String, and the conversion format is yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss.
However, you most probably do not need to do it.
The only time a date format is used is for data input and output. Plus it is transparent, most of the time.
If your data comes from a file or data grid or a computation or many other steps, you can specify its format. If is comes from a Input table, think about converting with the sql build-in function : to-date, convert, cast, date depending on your database system.
If your output is a file or an Excel or a script, you can specify its format (which by default is yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss). If it's a sql insert or update, don't do anything and let the databases do the conversion.
How can I retrieve a record based on a Date property? I'm trying:
WHERE Meetings.[MDate] = '16/12/2011'
which is the format I use but I get :
"Data type mismatch in criteria expression"
Problem solved: It should have been:
WHERE Meetings.[MDate] = 16/12/2011
No quotation marks.
For where clauses use
columnName = #mm/dd/yyyy#
You'll want to use the SQL date format: '#2011-12-16#'
Use the cast to DATETIME function, CDATE(), which will honour the machine's regional settings. That said, it still a good idea to use an unambiguous date format and the ISO 8601 format is a good one.
Also note that Access doesn't have a date data type: its sole temporal data type is DATETIME and, as its name suggests, always has a time element accurate to one second time granule, even if that time happens to be midnight. Therefore, it is a good idea to always include a time value to one second time granule in all DATETIME literals e.g.
WHERE Meetings.MDate = CDATE('2011-12-16 00:00:00');
Another advantage to the above is that the Access UI will not attempt to reformat the DATETIME literal because it is held as a string.