Dates in SQL Server

By Bill Graziano on 1 August 2000 | Tags: Queries

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Assorted readers have written "Can i get system date in sql stmnts directly thru any function? and I want to take a date from the html form and wish to pass on to the stored procedure where the value is inserted

Let's start with the easiest one first. You can use the GETDATE() function to return the date and time of the server. For example,

SELECT Today=GETDATE()

returns

Today
---------------------------
2000-07-31 20:01:19.957

which is actually both the date and time. You can return just the date by using the formatting feature of the CONVERT function.

SELECT Today=convert(varchar, GETDATE(), 101)

returns

Today
------------------------------
07/31/2000

This converts the result of GETDATE to a VARCHAR and sets the style to 101. This happens to be the code for MM/DD/YYYY. There are numerous styles to choose from.

Inserting a date into a table using SQL shouldn't be very difficult. Converting from CHAR and VARCHAR to DATETIME is an implicit conversion that SQL Server should handle properly. If you are having problems I would make sure you have the date in one of the formats listed in the documentation for the CONVERT statement explicity convert it.

Insert MyTable(DateField)
Values ( convert (datetime, '3/15/2004'))

should get you a clean insert. Again, carefully check the format of the field you are trying to insert.

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