Convert 8 Digit Number into Date in SQL

Question

I have a date field that is pulling from a server as just an 8 digit number, and I would like to convert it to a standard date format.

For example, " 20140501 " would be converted to 05-01-2014

I tried using the DateTime code, but that didn't work for me. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Many databases might recognize the string '20140501' as a date, because this is an ISO standard format. Hence, you might try this:

select cast(cast(datecol as varchar(255)) as date)

Whether or not this works depends on your database.