INF: BCPing in Just the Date of Datetime Column

ID: Q67659

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft SQL Server for OS/2, version 4.2
Microsoft SQL Server version 4.2x

The following information discusses what happens when just the date is BCPed into a datetime field.

It is possible to BCP just the date into a datetime field. The storage size will be the same as if you had both the date and time. For a datetime column, this is 4 bytes for the number of days since January 1, 1900, and 4 bytes for the number of milliseconds after midnight on that day. If you select from SQL Server what you have input with BCP, you will see the time "12:00AM" on the end of each date, because the number of milliseconds after midnight is 0 (zero).

To display just the date portion of a datetime field, use the style parameter of the convert() function. For example:


   select convert(char(12),getdate(),3)

Additional query words: Windows NT


Keywords          : kbtool SSrvBCP SSrvGen SSrvTrans 
Version           : 4.2 | 4.2
Platform          : OS/2 WINDOWS 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: March 10, 1999