Convert varchar to date

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I have a data like 'Sat, February 20, 2016' in columns of my SQL Table and wanted to convert it to date or datetime value in a query.

I need it as date or datetime to use in the comparative query.

Any help/guide is required.

What I have tried:

After searching google for a bit of time, I am still unable to convert or cast it to my required format.

Posted 27-Jul-16 22:17pm

VICK

Updated 27-Jul-16 23:02pm

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RossMW 28-Jul-16 4:41am

How consistent is the data format. If it's consistent you can look at breaking it down to its respective parts, and put it back in the format you want to convert it to a date field.
But if it's a human input text field, I don't fancy your chances unless you planning to data scrub.

VICK 28-Jul-16 5:27am

Its a human input fields. :(

2 solutions

Solution 2

You can do something like following-

SQL

DECLARE @MyVar AS VARCHAR(50)
SET @MyVar='Sat, February 20, 2016'

SELECT RIGHT(@MyVar,LEN(@MyVar)-5)
SELECT CAST(RIGHT(@MyVar,LEN(@MyVar)-5) AS DATETIME)

Hope, it helps :)

Posted 27-Jul-16 23:02pm

Suvendu Shekhar Giri

Comments

VICK 28-Jul-16 5:35am

It works, but preferred Griff's answer posted above..
Thanks for your reply. My 5+.

Suvendu Shekhar Giri 28-Jul-16 5:38am

True, That's the better way to do it.

Thanks for upvote :)

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OriginalGriff · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-27T22:46:00

Pretty much, you can't - or at least, not simply.
The problem is that SQL doesn't have a date format style that includes the day of the week: SQL Server CONVERT() Function[^] so you need to do some farily serious string manipulations first.
If you strip off the day of the week, it's fairly simple:

SQL

CONVERT(DATE, SUBSTRING('Sat, February 20, 2016', 6 , 999), 109)

Will do it.
But...having to do this is normally a sign that your DB design is badly flawed: you should not be storing dates in string format at all because you always get problems like this. I'd strongly suggest that the real solution is to write a quick app that converts your whole DB to use a DATETIME column instead of NVARCHAR - it'll save you a lot of grief in the future.