Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string while inserting datetime

There are many formats supported by SQL Server – see the MSDN Books Online on CAST and CONVERT. Most of those formats are dependent on what settings you have – therefore, these settings might work some times – and sometimes not.

The way to solve this is to use the (slightly adapted) ISO-8601 date format that is supported by SQL Server – this format works always – regardless of your SQL Server language and dateformat settings.

The ISO-8601 format is supported by SQL Server comes in two flavors:

  • YYYYMMDD for just dates (no time portion); note here: no dashes!, that’s very important! YYYY-MM-DD is NOT independent of the dateformat settings in your SQL Server and will NOT work in all situations!

or:

  • YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS for dates and times – note here: this format has dashes (but they can be omitted), and a fixed T as delimiter between the date and time portion of your DATETIME.

This is valid for SQL Server 2000 and newer.

So in your specific case – use these strings:

insert into table1 values('2012-02-21T18:10:00', '2012-01-01T00:00:00');

and you should be fine (note: you need to use the international 24-hour format rather than 12-hour AM/PM format for this).

Alternatively: if you’re on SQL Server 2008 or newer, you could also use the DATETIME2 datatype (instead of plain DATETIME) and your current INSERT would just work without any problems! 🙂 DATETIME2 is a lot better and a lot less picky on conversions – and it’s the recommend date/time data types for SQL Server 2008 or newer anyway.

SELECT
   CAST('02-21-2012 6:10:00 PM' AS DATETIME2),     -- works just fine
   CAST('01-01-2012 12:00:00 AM' AS DATETIME2)   -- works just fine

Don’t ask me why this whole topic is so tricky and somewhat confusing – that’s just the way it is. But with the YYYYMMDD format, you should be fine for any version of SQL Server and for any language and dateformat setting in your SQL Server.

Related Posts:

  1. Case in Select Statement
  2. What is a stored procedure?
  3. Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string while inserting datetime
  4. Self Join to get employee manager name
  5. How do I UPDATE from a SELECT in SQL Server?
  6. SQL query to select dates between two dates
  7. When should I use CROSS APPLY over INNER JOIN?
  8. Insert Data Into Temp Table with Query
  9. error, string or binary data would be truncated when trying to insert
  10. How to create Temp table with SELECT * INTO tempTable FROM CTE Query
  11. NOT IN vs NOT EXISTS
  12. How can I do an UPDATE statement with JOIN in SQL Server?
  13. Must declare the scalar variable
  14. Must declare the scalar variable
  15. Rename column SQL Server 2008
  16. INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint – SQL Server
  17. Efficiently convert rows to columns in sql server
  18. Nested select statement in SQL Server
  19. INSERT statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint – SQL Server
  20. How do I escape a single quote in SQL Server?
  21. T-SQL split string based on delimiter
  22. Drop a temporary table if it exists
  23. How do I escape a single quote in SQL Server?
  24. How Stuff and ‘For Xml Path’ work in SQL Server?
  25. IDENTITY_INSERT is set to OFF – How to turn it ON?
  26. Column name or number of supplied values does not match table definition
  27. Inserting data into a temporary table
  28. Can a foreign key be NULL and/or duplicate?
  29. Why does NULL = NULL evaluate to false in SQL server
  30. CREATE VIEW must be the only statement in the batch
  31. SQL Server FOR EACH Loop
  32. Difference between JOIN and INNER JOIN
  33. Best way to do nested case statement logic in SQL Server
  34. The multi-part identifier could not be bound
  35. “CASE” statement within “WHERE” clause in SQL Server 2008
  36. Get day of week in SQL Server 2005/2008
  37. What is the difference between Scope_Identity(), Identity(), @@Identity, and Ident_Current()?
  38. incorrect syntax error CREATE VIEW must be the only statement in the batch
  39. DateTime2 vs DateTime in SQL Server
  40. Difference between numeric, float and decimal in SQL Server
  41. SQL Server Insert if not exists
  42. SQL Server: Invalid Column Name
  43. The ALTER TABLE statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint
  44. SQL Server reports ‘Invalid column name’, but the column is present and the query works through management studio
  45. How to parse XML data in SQL server table
  46. What is the equivalent of ‘describe table’ in SQL Server?
  47. SQL Server IF NOT EXISTS Usage?
  48. How do I query for all dates greater than a certain date in SQL Server?
  49. String or binary data would be truncated. The statement has been terminated
  50. Add a column with a default value to an existing table in SQL Server
  51. Error converting data type varchar to float
  52. Remote table-Valued Function Calls are not allowed
  53. How to concatenate text from multiple rows into a single text string in SQL Server
  54. Count(*) vs Count(1) – SQL Server
  55. The backend version is not supported to design database diagrams or tables
  56. Determine ROW that caused “unexpected end of file” error in BULK INSERT?
  57. Determine ROW that caused “unexpected end of file” error in BULK INSERT?
  58. Conversion failed when converting the varchar value ‘simple, ‘ to data type int
  59. SELECT DISTINCT on one column
  60. Exclude a column using SELECT * [except columnA] FROM tableA?
  61. Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 1, column 4 (Year)
  62. Why is SQL server throwing this error: Cannot insert the value NULL into column ‘id’?
  63. TSQL PIVOT MULTIPLE COLUMNS
  64. Microsoft OLE DB Provider for SQL Server error ‘80004005’
  65. Bulk load data conversion error (truncation)
  66. SQL “select where not in subquery” returns no results
  67. ListAGG in SQLSERVER
  68. Equivalent of Oracle’s RowID in SQL Server
  69. Is there a Max function in SQL Server that takes two values like Math.Max in .NET?
  70. Subtract one day from datetime
  71. ‘CREATE PROCEDURE’ must be the only statement in the batch (Erro)
  72. Is it possible to specify condition in Count()?
  73. Replacing NULL with 0 in a SQL server query
  74. SQL Server dynamic PIVOT query?
  75. Incorrect syntax near ”
  76. SQL Server: Make all UPPER case to Proper Case/Title Case
  77. How do I query for all dates greater than a certain date in SQL Server?
  78. Backup a single table with its data from a database in sql server 2008
  79. Error converting data type varchar
  80. Temporary table in SQL server causing ‘ There is already an object named’ error
  81. SQL Server “cannot perform an aggregate function on an expression containing an aggregate or a subquery”, but Sybase can
  82. Get everything after and before certain character in SQL Server
  83. How to calculate age (in years) based on Date of Birth and getDate()
  84. ORDER BY items must appear in the select list if SELECT DISTINCT is specified
  85. Solutions for INSERT OR UPDATE on SQL Server
  86. Text was truncated or one or more characters had no match in the target code page including the primary key in an unpivot
  87. How can I group by date time column without taking time into consideration
  88. What are database constraints?
  89. Inner Joining three tables
  90. Append table to an existing one: SQL Server
  91. SQL Server – An expression of non-boolean type specified in a context where a condition is expected, near ‘RETURN’
  92. “select * into table” Will it work for inserting data into existing table
  93. INSERT VALUES WHERE NOT EXISTS
  94. Filter data based on date in sql
  95. CASE IN statement with multiple values
  96. How to implement LIMIT with SQL Server? [duplicate]
  97. Update query using Subquery in Sql Server
  98. Varchar invalid for Sum operator
  99. Cannot insert explicit value for identity column in table ‘table’ when IDENTITY_INSERT is set to OFF
  100. How to dump a Microsoft SQL Server database to a SQL script?

Leave a Comment