I’m working on a project in SQL Server where I need to manipulate some datetime values, but I’m a bit stuck. I want to transform these datetime values to just the date format for reporting purposes. However, it’s really important for me to maintain the original data type of the column, so I don’t want to change it from datetime to date format.
Does anyone have any tips or solutions on how I can achieve this? Specifically, how can I extract only the date part while preserving the underlying datetime data type? Any help or examples would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Handling DateTime in SQL Server
Hi there!
If you’re looking to work with datetime values in SQL Server and just want to display the date part without changing the underlying data type, you can use the
CAST
orCONVERT
functions.Method 1: Using CAST
You can cast the datetime to a string format that only includes the date portion. Here’s an example:
Method 2: Using CONVERT
Alternatively, you can use the
CONVERT
function, which provides more formatting options. Here’s how you can do it:Both methods will allow you to extract the date part while keeping your original column as a datetime type. You can then use the result for your reporting needs!
I hope this helps you on your project!
To extract the date part from a datetime value in SQL Server while preserving the original datetime data type, you can utilize the CAST or CONVERT functions in your query. For reporting purposes, you might want to format your output to only display the date, but keep the data type as datetime. An effective way to achieve this is by setting the time portion to midnight using the CONVERT function. Here’s an example:
In this example, the inner CONVERT function converts the datetime value to a varchar formatted as ‘mm/dd/yyyy’, and the outer CONVERT transforms it back into the datetime type. This ensures that the time part is set to 00:00:00, effectively giving you the date-only representation while retaining the datetime data type.