Stairway to Advanced T-SQL

Stairway to Advanced T-SQL Level 9: Compare, Modify, Derive and Validate Date and Time Values

When you build applications that store data in SQL Server you will most likely have to store dates and times, and you’ll call functions to do date manipulations. It is important to understand the different date and time data types, and when to use one data type over another. In this level I will be exploring the different date and time data types and discussing when each type is appropriate.

External Article

EsProc SPL and SQL, Complimentary , But Different Technologies

Have you ever surfed the internet and felt overwhelmed by personalized advertisements that appear to know your every desire? Have you ever been amazed at how accurate some weather forecasts can be? These actions are based on data processing. EsProc SPL and SQL (note, SPL stands for Structured Processing Language and SQL stands for Structured Query Language). SQL is a major language widely encountered and used for data manipulation within relational databases. While EsProc SPL is another effective tool for data processing, especially suited for complex computations and in-memory operations, it is less commonly encountered.

Blogs

T-SQL Tuesday #203: Risk and Reward

By

This is timely, as I’m currently on a boat in the Adriatic taking a...

dataMinds Connect 2026 – Slides & Scripts

By

You can find the slides and SQL scripts for my session “Spice up your...

How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later)

By

How to Clear the SSMS Cache (SSMS 21 and Later) Updated...

Read the latest Blogs

Forums

Risk Vs Reward, The never ending ROI discussion.

By Pat Wright

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Risk Vs Reward, The never...

Using CHOOSE()

By Steve Jones - SSC Editor

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Using CHOOSE()

Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping Secondary (Without Touching the Primary)

By LukaMK

Comments posted to this topic are about the item Re-Seeding a Broken Log Shipping...

Visit the forum

Question of the Day

Using CHOOSE()

We have this code that sets some status values and then queries them using the CHOOSE() function in SQL Server 2025.

CREATE TABLE Status
(
    StatusID INT,
    StatusDescription VARCHAR(20)
);
GO
INSERT dbo.Status
(
    StatusID,
    StatusDescription
)
VALUES
(0, 'Uncategorized'),
(1, 'Active'),
(2, 'Inactive'),
(3, 'Temp');

GO
SELECT CHOOSE(StatusID, 'Unknown', 'Active', 'Inactive', 'Temporary')
FROM Status;
When the SELECT runs, what is returned?

See possible answers