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newbieuser

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 8:47 AM

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Hi all,

In oracle I use this query to format the date field. chg_dt is a date field in addchg table

select to_char(chg_dt,'YYYY/DD/MM HH:MI') as date from addchg;

DATECHG
----------------
2002/11/11 12:00

How can I do this in sql server?? Seems to be too complicated... I tried using convert but couldnt get this format

select convert(datetime, chg_dt,112) from addchg

I keep getting 2002-11-11 12:00:00:000

Please help thanks

Post #774285

Dave Ballantyne

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 8:54 AM

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Please see convert in BOL for other 'styles' of conversion

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Post #774292

Lowell

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:09 AM

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there's not a specific predefined format for the string you are looking for;
two of the formats are pretty close, so by combining them you can get exactly what you want:

declare @date datetime
set @date=getdate()
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR,@date,111) + ' ' + LEFT(CONVERT(VARCHAR,@date,114),5)
--results:
2009/08/20 11:09

Lowell

--There is no spoon, and there's no default ORDER BY in sql server either.
Actually, Common Sense is so rare, it should be considered a Superpower. --my son

Post #774305

newbieuser

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:13 AM

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Thanks I got that working.

But I've another problem. I have a column a with datatype varchar(19). If I insert a string with 15 characters it should automatically insert spaces to the left for 4 spaces..

I tried using left() but, not sure how I can mention this in the insert..

create table test1 (a varchar(19))

insert into test1 values ('123456789123456')

select left(' ' +a,19) from test1

This inserts spaces when I select.. But how can I automate this if there are 16 characters to insert 3 spaces ..

Thanks

Post #774308

Lowell

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:21 AM

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ok, i think you want to left pad the string so it is right aligned, correct?
two ways I can think of, using either the SPACE or REPLICATE functions, and grabbing the RIGHT of the string.

insert into test1 
select  RIGHT(SPACE(19) + '456',19) UNION ALL
select RIGHT(replicate(' ',19) + '876842',19)

insert into test1 
select RIGHT(replicate(' ',19) + YourColumnName,19) From YourTable

replicate is handy if you need preceeding zeros instead of spaces

Lowell

--There is no spoon, and there's no default ORDER BY in sql server either.
Actually, Common Sense is so rare, it should be considered a Superpower. --my son

Post #774318

newbieuser

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 9:24 AM

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Thanks a million

Post #774322

Jeff Moden

Posted Thursday, August 20, 2009 7:03 PM

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As a bit of a sidebar... unless this formatting you want to do is strictly for output to a file, you should let the GUI do date formatting so that local "regional" settings will correctly format the date according to the region of the world the user is in. It also takes a bit of a load off the server. If the GUI is a report generator, let that do the formatting as well. For goodness sake, NEVER store formatted dates in the database because you will have to do conversions implicitly or explicitly to do even the simplest of date math in the future.

--Jeff Moden

"RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for "Row-By-Agonizing-Row".

First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column."

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Post #774710

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