Get the latest date in SQL from text format

Question

I'm trying to get the latest date from a csv file , the dates are stored in this form

NOV 14 2010
FEB 1 2012
JUN 18 2014

and my query is like

SELECT Max(date) from table

I'm getting

NOV 14 2010

any idea ?

Answer 1

They are likely being considered strings(varchar) not DateTimes. Try:

SELECT MAX(CAST(TABLE.date as DateTime)) FROM TABLE