Using Sum(Cast(Replace syntax - sql-server

I am trying to write a simple query in order to change some of our stage data. I have a varchar $ column (unfortunately) that needs to be summed. My issue is that because of commas, I cannot change the datatype.
So, I can use REPLACE(AMT,',','') to remove the commas but It still wont let me cast it as a decimal and I get
Error converting data type varchar to numeric.
I am trying the following below with no luck. Any ideas? Can this be done or am I using the wrong syntax here?
Select SUM(Cast(REPLACE(Amt,',','') as Decimal (18,2)) )

I was able to resolve this with #HABO suggestion. I used Cast(Ltrim(rtrim(table.AMT)) as Money) for all instances of the varchar amount. This removed white space and removed the commas from the numbers.

This should work... including an example.
Edit: if you are on SQL Server 2012+, you may be able to shorten your task by using Try_Convert
DECLARE #SomeTable AS TABLE (Amt Varchar(100));
INSERT INTO #Sometable (Amt) VALUES ('abc123,456.01'),(' 123,456.78 '),(Null),('asdad'),('');
With NumericsOnly AS
(
SELECT
REPLACE(Left(SubString(Amt, PatIndex('%[0-9.-,]%', Amt), 8000), PatIndex('%[^0-9.,-]%', SubString(Amt, PatIndex('%[0-9.,-]%', Amt), 8000) + 'X')-1),',','') AS CleanAmt
FROM
#SomeTable
)
SELECT
SUM(CONVERT(DECIMAL(18,2), CleanAmt)) AS TotalAmt
FROM
NumericsOnly
WHERE
IsNumeric(CleanAmt)=1
General methodology is taken from here

I wouldn't use money as a data type as it is notorious for rounding error.
The error is due to SQL order of operations within your SUM(CAST(REPLACE... operation. This issue can be resolved by summing the column AFTER it's been staged to be summed via a subquery:
SELECT SUM(Field),...
FROM ( SELECT
Cast(REPLACE(Amt,',','') as NUMERIC) as 'Field'
,...
) [Q]
If the table you're summing is administered by a BI Team, get them to stage the data there. Happy Data Happy life.

Related

Troubleshoot conversion failed when converting date and /or time from character string

I know this has been addressed 1000 times but something screwy is going on and I need help with ideas to troubleshoot.
Using MS SQL Server 2012
I have a date stored as INT in the YYYYMMDD format.
I need to turn that into a date and I always use this:
CONVERT(DATE,CONVERT(VARCHAR,YYYYMMDD),101)
*I know not specifying the length of the varchar is bad form but where I'm doing this has never caused an issue and just to be thorough I tried it anyway to no avail.
That conversion always works. Always, until today.
Today, this conversion doesn't work and I get the above mentioned error in title.
One thing I've done is run part of the query to look at the values to make sure I don't find something dumb like this in my values:
20170102
20170304
-->2017ABCD
20170704
What else can I do?
To expand on my initial comment
Example
Declare #YourTable table (SomeCol varchar(25))
Insert Into #YourTable values
('20170102'),
('20170304'),
('2017ABCD'),
('20170704')
Select SomeCol
,AsDate = try_convert(date,SomeCol)
From #YourTable
Returns
SomeCol AsDate
20170102 2017-01-02
20170304 2017-03-04
2017ABCD NULL
20170704 2017-07-04

SQL Conversion failed when converting the varchar value '*' to data type int

Aside: Please note that this is not a duplicate of the countless other string-to-int issues in sql. This is a specific cryptic error message (with the asterisk) that hides another problem
Today I came across an issue in my SQL that took me all day to solve. I was passing a data table parameter into my stored procedure and then inserting part of it into another table. The code used was similar to the following:
INSERT INTO tblUsers
(UserId,ProjectId)
VALUES ((SELECT CAST(CL.UserId AS int) FROM #UserList AS UL),#ProjectId)
I didn't seem to get the error message when using test data, only when making the call from the dev system.
What is the issue and how should the code look?
I could bet that (SELECT CAST(CL.UserId AS int) FROM #UserList AS UL) returns more than 1 row and your test scenario had only 1 row. But that may be just me.
Anyway, the way the code should look is:
INSERT INTO tblUsers (UserId,ProjectId)
SELECT CAST(CL.UserId AS int),
#ProjectId
FROM #UserList AS UL
After some time of trawling through google and such places, I have determined that this SQL code is wrong. I believe the correct code is something more like this:
INSERT INTO tblUsers
(UserId,ProjectId)
SELECT CAST(CL.UserId AS int) ,#ProjectId
FROM #UserList AS UL
The issue is that the other way of doing it attempts to insert one record with the data of all of the rows in the table parameter. I needed to remove the VALUES statement. Also, in order to add other data, I can simply put that as part of the select as you would otherwise

SQL Server - Set Date Format at insertion

Does anyone know the correct syntax for this format: dd-mmm-yyyy. E.g. 04-DEC-2016
Basic Insert
INSERT INTO GoodTbl (GoodID, GoodDate)VALUES (7,'12-04-2016')
I did this and it worked
INSERT INTO GoodTbl (GoodID, GoodDate)VALUES (7,(CONVERT(DATETIME,'12-04-2016', 105)));
but 106 is the correct code. However using 106 (as shown) does not work.
INSERT INTO GoodTbl (GoodID, GoodDate)VALUES (7,(CONVERT(DATETIME,'12-04-2016', 106)));
Is there a different way to write this?
If 2012+ you can use the format()
Select Format(GetDate(),'dd-MMM-yyyy')
Returns
03-Dec-2016
Another option is
Select Replace(convert(varchar(25),GetDate(),106),' ','-')
You realize that these conversions are string, so I am assuming the destination field is a string/varchar
Use VARCHAR instead of DateTime, then the following:
INSERT INTO GoodTbl (GoodID, GoodDate)
VALUES (7,Replace(convert(varchar(25),cast('2016-12-04' as date),106),' ','-'))

Build a SQL query with a DateTime parameter

I can successfully use a Query with a Date parameter in string format as
SELECT * FROM ORDERS WHERE [DATE]='20160209'
but I haven't seen any sample of a Query specifying a DateTime parameter in string format.
Next samples are rejected by Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio:
SELECT * FROM ORDERS WHERE [DATE]='20130523T153500000Z'
SELECT * FROM ORDERS WHERE [DATE]='2013-05-23T15:35:00:000Z'
I know this is not a good practice and I should pass DateTime values rather than strings, but sometimes it is useful for debugging.
What is the right format to include a string formatted datetime on a SQL query?
No so sure where you've got those date formats...
This one '2013-05-23T15:35:00:000Z' just doesn't seem to be right. I haven't seen that nanoseconds were delimited by a ':' character. It is usually a decimal of a second, so '2013-05-23T15:35:00.000Z' is a better format and it works:
select convert(DateTime,'2013-05-23T15:35:00.000Z')
As for the other, you might need to do the parsing yourself:
select CONVERT(DATETIME,LEFT('20130523T153500000Z',4)+SUBSTRING('20130523T153500000Z',5,2)+SUBSTRING('20130523T153500000Z',7,2))
hope this helps.
Can you just do something like this?
SELECT *
FROM ORDERS
WHERE [DATE] = CONVERT(DATETIME,'20130523T153500000Z')
As long as the string is in a workable format.
If it's just for debugging, you might do something like:
DECLARE #val VARCHAR(25)
-- Easily swapped out with different testing values
SET #val = '20130523T153500000Z'
SELECT *
FROM Orders
WHERE [DATE] = CAST(#val AS DATETIME)
-- You could also use CONVERT

How to convert SQL Server's timestamp column to datetime format

As SQL Server returns timestamp like 'Nov 14 2011 03:12:12:947PM', is there some easy way to convert string to date format like 'Y-m-d H:i:s'.
So far I use
date('Y-m-d H:i:s',strtotime('Nov 14 2011 03:12:12:947PM'))
SQL Server's TIMESTAMP datatype has nothing to do with a date and time!
It's just a hexadecimal representation of a consecutive 8 byte integer - it's only good for making sure a row hasn't change since it's been read.
You can read off the hexadecimal integer or if you want a BIGINT. As an example:
SELECT CAST (0x0000000017E30D64 AS BIGINT)
The result is
400756068
In newer versions of SQL Server, it's being called RowVersion - since that's really what it is. See the MSDN docs on ROWVERSION:
Is a data type that exposes automatically generated, unique binary numbers within a database. rowversion is generally used as a mechanism
for version-stamping table rows. The
rowversion data type is just an incrementing number and does not
preserve a date or a time. To record a date or time, use a datetime2
data type.
So you cannot convert a SQL Server TIMESTAMP to a date/time - it's just not a date/time.
But if you're saying timestamp but really you mean a DATETIME column - then you can use any of those valid date formats described in the CAST and CONVERT topic in the MSDN help. Those are defined and supported "out of the box" by SQL Server. Anything else is not supported, e.g. you have to do a lot of manual casting and concatenating (not recommended).
The format you're looking for looks a bit like the ODBC canonical (style = 121):
DECLARE #today DATETIME = SYSDATETIME()
SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(50), #today, 121)
gives:
2011-11-14 10:29:00.470
SQL Server 2012 will finally have a FORMAT function to do custom formatting......
The simplest way of doing this is:
SELECT id,name,FROM_UNIXTIME(registration_date) FROM `tbl_registration`;
This gives the date column atleast in a readable format.
Further if you want to change te format click here.
Using cast you can get date from a timestamp field:
SELECT CAST(timestamp_field AS DATE) FROM tbl_name
Works fine, except this message:
Implicit conversion from data type varchar to timestamp is not allowed. Use the CONVERT function to run this query
So yes, TIMESTAMP (RowVersion) is NOT a DATE :)
To be honest, I fidddled around quite some time myself to find a way to convert it to a date.
Best way is to convert it to INT and compare. That's what this type is meant to be.
If you want a date - just add a Datetime column and live happily ever after :)
cheers mac
My coworkers helped me with this:
select CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), <tms_column>, 112), count(*)
from table where <tms_column> > '2012-09-10'
group by CONVERT(VARCHAR(10), <tms_column>, 112);
or
select CONVERT(DATE, <tms_column>, 112), count(*)
from table where <tms_column> > '2012-09-10'
group by CONVERT(DATE, <tms_column>, 112);
"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."
— Inigo Montoya
The timestamp has absolutely no relationship to time as marc_s originally said.
declare #Test table (
TestId int identity(1,1) primary key clustered
,Ts timestamp
,CurrentDt datetime default getdate()
,Something varchar(max)
)
insert into #Test (Something)
select name from sys.tables
waitfor delay '00:00:10'
insert into #Test (Something)
select name from sys.tables
select * from #Test
Notice in the output that Ts (hex) increments by one for each record, but the actual time has a gap of 10 seconds. If it were related to time then there would be a gap in the timestamp to correspond with the difference in the time.
for me works:
TO_DATE('19700101', 'yyyymmdd') + (TIME / 24 / 60 / 60)
(oracle DB)
Robert Mauro has the correct comment. For those who know the Sybase origins, datetime was really two separate integers, one for date, one for time, so timestamp aka rowversion could just be considered the raw value captured from the server. Much faster.
After impelemtation of conversion to integer
CONVERT(BIGINT, [timestamp]) as Timestamp
I've got the result like
446701117
446701118
446701119
446701120
446701121
446701122
446701123
446701124
446701125
446701126
Yes, this is not a date and time, It's serial numbers
Why not try FROM_UNIXTIME(unix_timestamp, format)?
I had the same problem with timestamp eg:'29-JUL-20 04.46.42.000000000 PM'. I wanted to turn it into 'yyyy-MM-dd' format. The solution that finally works for me is
SELECT TO_CHAR(mytimestamp, 'YYYY-MM-DD') FROM mytable;
I will assume that you've done a data dump as insert statements, and you (or whoever Googles this) are attempting to figure out the date and time, or translate it for use elsewhere (eg: to convert to MySQL inserts). This is actually easy in any programming language.
Let's work with this:
CAST(0x0000A61300B1F1EB AS DateTime)
This Hex representation is actually two separate data elements... Date and Time. The first four bytes are date, the second four bytes are time.
The date is 0x0000A613
The time is 0x00B1F1EB
Convert both of the segments to integers using the programming language of your choice (it's a direct hex to integer conversion, which is supported in every modern programming language, so, I will not waste space with code that may or may not be the programming language you're working in).
The date of 0x0000A613 becomes 42515
The time of 0x00B1F1EB becomes 11661803
Now, what to do with those integers:
Date
Date is since 01/01/1900, and is represented as days. So, add 42,515 days to 01/01/1900, and your result is 05/27/2016.
Time
Time is a little more complex. Take that INT and do the following to get your time in microseconds since midnight (pseudocode):
TimeINT=Hex2Int(HexTime)
MicrosecondsTime = TimeINT*10000/3
From there, use your language's favorite function calls to translate microseconds (38872676666.7 µs in the example above) into time.
The result would be 10:47:52.677
Some of them actually does covert to a date-time from SQL Server 2008 onwards.
Try the following SQL query and you will see for yourself:
SELECT CAST (0x00009CEF00A25634 AS datetime)
The above will result in 2009-12-30 09:51:03:000 but I have encountered ones that actually don't map to a date-time.
Not sure if I'm missing something here but can't you just convert the timestamp like this:
CONVERT(VARCHAR,CAST(ZEIT AS DATETIME), 110)

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