Introduction to Sequel Server's Formatting Options

Sequel Server offers three formatting options for working with dates: CAST, CONVERT, and FORMAT. In this lesson, we will delve into each of these functions and explore their capabilities.

CAST Function Overview

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The CAST function has been a staple in Sequel Server for over two decades. It allows us to convert one data type to another, such as an integer to a decimal. One of the limitations of CAST is that it does not provide control over how dates are converted into strings. Despite this limitation, CAST is part of the ANSI Sequel standard, ensuring that almost every database implementing Sequel will have access to this function.

Using CAST for Date Conversion

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To demonstrate the capabilities of CAST, we will perform a series of operations using three variables of different types: date, string, and old datetime. We will cast each of these to their respective formats, resulting in a string, date, and well-formatted string, respectively. The level of formatting is left up to interpretation.

CAST Function Benefits

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On the positive side, CAST offers several benefits. As part of the ANSI Sequel standard, it ensures that most databases implementing Sequel will have access to this function, making it a reliable choice for date conversion.

Convert Function Overview

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The CONVERT function also provides an alternative method for converting between data types, including dates. Unlike CAST, CONVERT allows us to specify how our dates should be converted into strings. This function is specific to T-SQL and will not be found outside of Sequel Server.

Using CONVERT for Date Conversion

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We can use the CONVERT function by specifying a data type, input value, and optional style parameter. The style parameter determines how the date is formatted, with options ranging from simple text formats to national formats such as British or French. Additionally, there are several standards-based formats available, including ISO 8601.

CONVERT Function Benefits

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The CONVERT function offers several benefits, including the ability to specify how our dates should be converted into strings and the availability of various national formats and standards-based options.

Format Function Overview

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The FORMAT function arrived in Sequel Server 2012, offering improved flexibility in reporting compared to CAST or CONVERT. However, it is also specific to T-SQL due to its reliance on the .NET framework for conversion. The format function takes three parameters: an input value, a format code, and an optional culture parameter.

Using FORMAT for Date Conversion

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The FORMAT function allows us to print out dates for locales and specify our own custom formats. This level of flexibility makes it an attractive option for date conversion tasks. However, the format function can be slower than CAST or CONVERT, especially as the dataset size increases.

Format Function Benefits

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The FORMAT function offers several benefits, including improved reporting capabilities and the ability to print out dates for locales and specify custom formats.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe last lesson took you through generating and working with dates into their component parts in this lesson we will take those dates and see what formatting options are available sequel server has three formatting options available to us cast convert and format the cast function has been in sequel server for over two decades it lets us convert one data type to another data type such as an integer to a decimal when using cast we have no control over the way the function turns our dates into strings on the positive side though cast is part of the ANSI sequel standard which means almost every database which implements sequel will have it let's look at an example of casting we will start with three variables of different types for each of these we will perform a cast operation we will take some date and turn it into a string some string into a date - time - an old date time into a string as you can see the cast function successfully converts each of these returning a string a date and a well formatted string respectively how well it's formatted I'll leave up to you the convert function also goes back at least to sequel Server 2000 it is useful for converting between data types just like cast unlike cast we get some input and how our dates should look as we convert them to strings the convert function is specific to T sequel meaning you should not expect to find it outside of sequel server we can see how the convert function works using this date the convert function takes three parameters a data type an input and an optional style we can see what some of these Styles do to our strings style 0 prints out text the same way that caste does for a date/time type using styles 1 or 101 we can print dates in United States common format the difference is that with one we get a two-digit year and 101 prints a four-digit year another example is to use style 120 which prints an ODBC standard format to the second ignoring milliseconds and microseconds microsoft supports a few dozen distinct conversion Styles we already saw United States format but that's not the only national format we can use 3 or 103 to print in the British or French national format there are others as well such as German Japanese and Italian we can format the indy iso or ODBC standards for interoperability there is even the ISO 8601 standard which is my preference the format function arrived in sequel Server 2012 it adds much more flexibility in reporting than either cast or convert but is also specific to T sequel because it uses the dotnet framework for conversion and is single threaded it can be slower than cast or convert formats takes three parameters an input value a format code and an optional culture using different cultures I can print out dates for locales I can also specify my own custom format the format function can be slower than cast or convert on my machine we can see that starting at around 100,000 rows format becomes slower than either function in other examples people have run format becomes unbearable in the 50,000 or 100,000 record range for datasets of a few hundred or a few thousand rows you will probably not notice any delay when using format but keep this in mind as you scale up your data with these three functions in hand let's dig into exercisesthe last lesson took you through generating and working with dates into their component parts in this lesson we will take those dates and see what formatting options are available sequel server has three formatting options available to us cast convert and format the cast function has been in sequel server for over two decades it lets us convert one data type to another data type such as an integer to a decimal when using cast we have no control over the way the function turns our dates into strings on the positive side though cast is part of the ANSI sequel standard which means almost every database which implements sequel will have it let's look at an example of casting we will start with three variables of different types for each of these we will perform a cast operation we will take some date and turn it into a string some string into a date - time - an old date time into a string as you can see the cast function successfully converts each of these returning a string a date and a well formatted string respectively how well it's formatted I'll leave up to you the convert function also goes back at least to sequel Server 2000 it is useful for converting between data types just like cast unlike cast we get some input and how our dates should look as we convert them to strings the convert function is specific to T sequel meaning you should not expect to find it outside of sequel server we can see how the convert function works using this date the convert function takes three parameters a data type an input and an optional style we can see what some of these Styles do to our strings style 0 prints out text the same way that caste does for a date/time type using styles 1 or 101 we can print dates in United States common format the difference is that with one we get a two-digit year and 101 prints a four-digit year another example is to use style 120 which prints an ODBC standard format to the second ignoring milliseconds and microseconds microsoft supports a few dozen distinct conversion Styles we already saw United States format but that's not the only national format we can use 3 or 103 to print in the British or French national format there are others as well such as German Japanese and Italian we can format the indy iso or ODBC standards for interoperability there is even the ISO 8601 standard which is my preference the format function arrived in sequel Server 2012 it adds much more flexibility in reporting than either cast or convert but is also specific to T sequel because it uses the dotnet framework for conversion and is single threaded it can be slower than cast or convert formats takes three parameters an input value a format code and an optional culture using different cultures I can print out dates for locales I can also specify my own custom format the format function can be slower than cast or convert on my machine we can see that starting at around 100,000 rows format becomes slower than either function in other examples people have run format becomes unbearable in the 50,000 or 100,000 record range for datasets of a few hundred or a few thousand rows you will probably not notice any delay when using format but keep this in mind as you scale up your data with these three functions in hand let's dig into exercises\n"