converting nvarchar(50) to datetime

Question

I am using SQL Server 2005 and am trying to match in a Dimension table the date field with data:

2012-01-06 00:00:00.000 as a datetime to a staging table with data that comes in as a nvarchar(50) 2012-01-06 15:53:12.040 for example. I have tried all of the converts and casts that I can find on the searches but am getting an "Arithmetic overflow error converting expression to data type datetime." error message.

I have updated all of the time values manually in the staging table to have 00:00:00.000 time stamps but still the problem is there.

Can anyone help please?

Answer 1

Are you just trying to change the data type of the entire column?

If so, try this

ALTER TABLE table_name
ALTER COLUMN column_name datetime

More info .

If you are trying to just modify for a query, you can try this:

 SELECT convert (...look at link below for options... )

Look here for more info.