I want to convert a string like this:
'10/15/2008 10:06:32 PM'
into the equivalent DATETIME value in Sql Server.
In Oracle, I would say this:
TO_DATE('10/15/2008 10:06:32 PM','MM/DD/YYYY HH:MI:SS AM')
This question implies that I must parse the string into one of the standard formats, and then convert using one of those codes. That seems ludicrous for such a mundane operation. Is there an easier way?
Run this through your query processor. It formats dates and/or times like so and one of these should give you what you're looking for. It wont be hard to adapt:
Declare @d datetime
select @d = getdate()
select @d as OriginalDate,
convert(varchar,@d,100) as ConvertedDate,
100 as FormatValue,
'mon dd yyyy hh:miAM (or PM)' as OutputFormat
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,101),101,'mm/dd/yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,102),102,'yy.mm.dd'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,103),103,'dd/mm/yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,104),104,'dd.mm.yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,105),105,'dd-mm-yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,106),106,'dd mon yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,107),107,'Mon dd, yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,108),108,'hh:mm:ss'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,109),109,'mon dd yyyy hh:mi:ss:mmmAM (or PM)'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,110),110,'mm-dd-yy'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,111),111,'yy/mm/dd'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,12),12,'yymmdd'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,112),112,'yyyymmdd'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,113),113,'dd mon yyyy hh:mm:ss:mmm(24h)'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,114),114,'hh:mi:ss:mmm(24h)'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,120),120,'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss(24h)'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,121),121,'yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss.mmm(24h)'
union all
select @d,convert(varchar,@d,126),126,'yyyy-mm-dd Thh:mm:ss:mmm(no spaces)'
SQL Server (2005, 2000, 7.0) does not have any flexible, or even non-flexible, way of taking an arbitrarily structured datetime in string format and converting it to the datetime data type.
By "arbitrarily", I mean "a form that the person who wrote it, though perhaps not you or I or someone on the other side of the planet, would consider to be intuitive and completely obvious." Frankly, I'm not sure there is any such algorithm.
Use this:
SELECT convert(datetime, '2018-10-25 20:44:11.500', 121) -- yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss.mmm
And refer to the table in the official documentation for the conversion codes.
For this problem the best solution I use is to have a CLR function in Sql Server 2005 that uses one of DateTime.Parse or ParseExact function to return the DateTime value with a specified format.
Took me a minute to figure this out so here it is in case it might help someone:
In SQL Server 2012 and better you can use this function:
SELECT DATEFROMPARTS(2013, 8, 19);
Here's how I ended up extracting the parts of the date to put into this function:
select
DATEFROMPARTS(right(cms.projectedInstallDate,4),left(cms.ProjectedInstallDate,2),right( left(cms.ProjectedInstallDate,5),2)) as 'dateFromParts'
from MyTable
I know this is a wicked old post with a whole lot of answers but a lot of people think that they NEED to either break things apart and put them back together or they insist that there's no way to implicitly do the conversion the OP original asked for.
To review and to hopefully provide an easy answer to others with the same question, the OP asked how to convert '10/15/2008 10:06:32 PM' to a DATETIME. Now, SQL Server does have some language dependencies for temporal conversions but if the language is english or something similar, this becomes a simple problem... just do the conversion and don't worry about the format. For example (and you can use CONVERT or CAST)...
SELECT UsingCONVERT = CONVERT(DATETIME,'10/15/2008 10:06:32 PM')
,UsingCAST = CAST('10/15/2008 10:06:32 PM' AS DATETIME)
;
... and that produces the follow answers, both of which are correct.
Like they say on the TV commercials, "But wait! Don't order yet! For no extra cost, it can do MUCH more!"
Let's see the real power of temporal conversions with the DATETIME and partially examine the mistake known as DATETIME2. Check out the whacky formats that DATETIME can handle auto-magically and that DATETIME2 cannot. Run the following code and see...
--===== Set the language for this example.
SET LANGUAGE ENGLISH --Same a US-English
;
--===== Use a table constructor as if it were a table for this example.
SELECT *
,DateTimeCONVERT = TRY_CONVERT(DATETIME,StringDT)
,DateTimeCAST = TRY_CAST(StringDT AS DATETIME)
,DateTime2CONVERT = TRY_CONVERT(DATETIME2,StringDT)
,DateTime2CAST = TRY_CAST(StringDT AS DATETIME2)
FROM (
VALUES
('Same Format As In The OP' ,'12/16/2001 01:51:01 PM')
,('Almost Normal' ,'16 December, 2001 1:51:01 PM')
,('More Normal' ,'December 16, 2001 01:51:01 PM')
,('Time Up Front + Spaces' ,' 13:51:01 16 December 2001')
,('Totally Whacky Format #01' ,' 16 13:51:01 December 2001')
,('Totally Whacky Format #02' ,' 16 December 13:51:01 2001 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #03' ,' 16 December 01:51:01 PM 2001 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #04' ,' 2001 16 December 01:51:01 PM ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #05' ,' 2001 December 01:51:01 PM 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #06' ,' 2001 16 December 01:51:01 PM ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #07' ,' 2001 16 December 13:51:01 PM ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #08' ,' 2001 16 13:51:01 PM December ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #09' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001.12/16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #10' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001.December/16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #11' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001.Dec/16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #12' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001.Dec.16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #13' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001/Dec.16')
,('Totally Whacky Format #14' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 . 12/16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #15' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 . December / 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #16' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 . Dec / 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #17' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 . Dec . 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #18' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 / Dec . 16')
,('Totally Whacky Format #19' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 . Dec - 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #20' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 - Dec - 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #21' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 - Dec . 16')
,('Totally Whacky Format #22' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 - Dec / 16 ')
,('Totally Whacky Format #23' ,' 13:51:01 PM 2001 / Dec - 16')
,('Just the year' ,' 2001 ')
,('YYYYMM' ,' 200112 ')
,('YYYY MMM' ,'2001 Dec')
,('YYYY-MMM' ,'2001-Dec')
,('YYYY . MMM' ,'2001 . Dec')
,('YYYY / MMM' ,'2001 / Dec')
,('YYYY - MMM' ,'2001 / Dec')
,('Forgot The Spaces #1' ,'2001December26')
,('Forgot The Spaces #2' ,'2001Dec26')
,('Forgot The Spaces #3' ,'26December2001')
,('Forgot The Spaces #4' ,'26Dec2001')
,('Forgot The Spaces #5' ,'26Dec2001 13:51:01')
,('Forgot The Spaces #6' ,'26Dec2001 13:51:01PM')
,('Oddly, this doesn''t work' ,'2001-12')
,('Oddly, this doesn''t work' ,'12-2001')
) v (Description,StringDT)
;
So, yeah... SQL Server DOES actually have a pretty flexible method of handling all sorts of weird-o temporal formats and no special handling is required. We didn't even need to remove the "PM"s that were added to the 24 hour times. It's "PFM" (Pure Freakin' Magic).
Things will vary a bit depending on the the LANGUAGE is that you've selected for your server but a whole lot of it will be handled either way.
And these "auto-magic" conversions aren't something new. They go a real long way back.
The most upvoted answer here are guravg's and Taptronic's. However, there's one contribution I'd like to make.
The specific format number they showed from 0 to 131 may vary depending on your use-case (see full number list here), the input number can be a nondeterministic one, which means that the expected result date isn't consistent from one SQL SERVER INSTANCE to another, avoid using the cast a string approach for the same reason.
Starting with SQL Server 2005 and its compatibility level of 90, implicit date conversions became nondeterministic. Date conversions became dependent on SET LANGUAGE and SET DATEFORMAT starting with level 90.
Non deterministic values are 0-100, 106, 107, 109, 113, 130. which may result in errors.
The best option is to stick to a deterministic setting, my current preference are ISO formats (12, 112, 23, 126), as they seem to be the most standard for IT people use cases.
Convert(varchar(30), '210510', 12) -- yymmdd
Convert(varchar(30), '20210510', 112) -- yyyymmdd
Convert(varchar(30), '2021-05-10', 23) -- yyyy-mm-dd
Convert(varchar(30), '2021-05-10T17:01:33.777', 126) -- yyyy-mm-ddThh:mi:ss.mmm (no spaces)
This page has some references for all of the specified datetime conversions available to the CONVERT function. If your values don't fall into one of the acceptable patterns, then I think the best thing is to go the ParseExact route.
Personally if your dealing with arbitrary or totally off the wall formats, provided you know what they are ahead of time or are going to be then simply use regexp to pull the sections of the date you want and form a valid date/datetime component.
If you want SQL Server to try and figure it out, just use CAST CAST('whatever' AS datetime) However that is a bad idea in general. There are issues with international dates that would come up. So as you've found, to avoid those issues, you want to use the ODBC canonical format of the date. That is format number 120, 20 is the format for just two digit years. I don't think SQL Server has a built-in function that allows you to provide a user given format. You can write your own and might even find one if you search online.
convert string to datetime in MSSQL implicitly
create table tmp
(
ENTRYDATETIME datetime
);
insert into tmp (ENTRYDATETIME) values (getdate());
insert into tmp (ENTRYDATETIME) values ('20190101'); --convert string 'yyyymmdd' to datetime
select * from tmp where ENTRYDATETIME > '20190925' --yyyymmdd
select * from tmp where ENTRYDATETIME > '20190925 12:11:09.555'--yyyymmdd HH:MIN:SS:MS
You can easily achieve this by using this code.
SELECT Convert(datetime, Convert(varchar(30),'10/15/2008 10:06:32 PM',102),102)
This code solve my problem :
convert(date,YOUR_DATE,104)
If you are using timestamp you can you the below code :
convert(datetime,YOUR_DATE,104)