DateTime conversion problem in SQL Server 2005

Question

Here I am using C# and SQL Server 2005. And my problem is, I have table in SQL Server like this

Status  ID     CreationDate            AccNo     Amount
 1      1001    5/27/2011 7:56:16 PM   100001    686700
 1      1002    5/27/2011 7:56:16 PM   10009      40000

when I am retrieving data like select * from tablename , then the date column will be displayed like below

Status  ID      CreationDate                AccNo    Amount
 1      1001     2011-05-27 19:56:16.110    100001    686700
 1      1002     2011-05-27 20:04:20.470    10009      40000

why it is changing like that and, how to change the date format 2011-05-27 19:56:16.110 to 5/27/2011 7:56:16 PM ?

Thanks, Anuradha J

Answer 1

A datetime column just stores a date and time value. It doesn't apply, nor store, any formatting information.

If you need these datetimes in a particular format for presentation, then you either need to specify that format during SELECT (by using CONVERT with an appropriate format specifier), or better, leave it up to whatever is consuming the results to perform conversion and formatting.

Looking at the format specifiers available for CONVERT , I can't actually see one that allows mm/dd/yyyy hh:mm:ss , so you'd need to perform two conversions, separately, for the date and time components, or as I say, leave it up to your C# code to perform the formatting. Ugly SQL way:

SELECT
    Status,
    ID,
    CONVERT(varchar(16),CreationDate,101) + ' ' +
       CONVERT(varchar(16),CreationDate,8) as CreationDate,
    AccNo,
    Amount
FROM
    tablename

Answer 2

answer dont change it the databse, change how you use the data from the database. in your code.

store the retrieved result in a date time object, then you can do anything you want with it. the data is the same.

or write a stored proc that changes the output to what ever you want.

look up time handeling in TSQL.

Answer 3

In the code behind you can do the following. Bring the date without converting it into string.

DateTime dt;
string Temp1 = "Your Date from database";
if (DateTime.TryParse(Temp1, out dt))
{
     // If it is a valid date
     string date = dt.ToShortDateString();
     string time = dt.ToShortTimeString();
}