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sqlsql-servert-sqldatetime-conversion

Convert string in T-SQL (YYYMMDD)

I have a column exit_date with varchar like 5/21/2008 0:00 and I need to update it to a string like YYYYMMDD, any way to do that? 

5/21/2008 0:00  ==> 20080521  
1/1/2007 0:00   ==> 20070101

How to do something like

select convert('5/21/2008 0:00', 'YYYYMMDD').
Solution

  • CONVERT allows a style for conversions datetime/varchar in both directions. Saying that, you have a format that is not listed. And you actually have 2 conversions too: you need to get it into datetime first

    In my local SQL install that has the default "us_english" settings, this works out of the box

    select convert(datetime, '5/21/2008 0:00')

    thus

    select convert(char(8), convert(datetime, '5/21/2008 0:00'), 112)

    You can use SET LANGUAGE to modify to us_english temporarily