使用错误处理将 Integer 转换为 Snowflake 中的日期

Question

I have a requirement where integer value should be converted to date type in Snowflake.Initially I used following query to get the desired result:

SELECT TO_DATE(TO_varchar(19000000+1200034),'YYYYMMDD') 2019-07-09

Now when I used same query for the input - "20200034", I am getting following error:

select TO_DATE(TO_varchar(19000000+1200034),'YYYYMMDD')

Can't parse '20200034' as date with format 'YYYYMMDD'

"20200034" is actually coming from one of the columns in snowflake table. To resolve this issue I tried using "TRY_TO_DATE" function, but output of "TRY_TO_DATE" function is giving incorrect result. Please find details below:

select TRY_TO_DATE(TO_varchar(19000000+1200034))

1970-08-22

As per Snowflake documentation, error handling function does not support optional format argument supported by TO_DATE, DATE. https://docs.snowflake.com/en/sql-reference/functions/try_to_date.html

Answer 1

You can set the DATE_INPUT_FORMAT for the session before calling the TRY_TO_DATE function.

Answer 2

I suggest you contact Snowflake support and ask them to enable try_to_date with format string - it's available but needs to be enabled manually.

However you have to be aware that TRY_TO_DATE on '20200034' will be resolved to NULL.