T-SQL to trim a datetime to the nearest date?

Question

Duplicate of What's the BEST way to remove the time portion of a datetime value (SQL Server)?

I have a column that tracks when things are created using a datetime, but I'd like to generate a report that groups them by day, so I need a way of nulling out the time component of a datetime column.

How do I do this?

Deflective

Answer 1

One way is to change getdate() to your column name,

select dateadd(dd, datediff(dd, 0, getdate())+0, 0)

Witting

I don't think the +0 is required (at least using sql server 2012+). This is the most creative and useful answer I've seen. – Buskined

Answer 2

Why not convert straight to date:

select convert(date, getdate())

This truncates days, not rounds. To round Days do this:

select convert(date, getdate() + 0.5)

Dufy

Easily the best answer for its simplicity and clarity. – Bandsman

Not if you are using SqlServer 2005 – Breakfront

@nalply because SQL Server 2005 doesn't have the date data type – Saari

Answer 3

Here's another solution:

SELECT CAST( FLOOR( CAST( GETDATE() AS float) ) AS smalldatetime)

Seessel

Answer 4

This is a simple way to get the date (as a string) from a datetime:

convert(varchar, <the date field/value/etc>, 101)

But note that ordering on this field will be alphabetical rather than by date since it's now a string

Seabrook

Answer 5

I simply do cast(getdate() as date)

Prescriptible

Answer 6

Yes. There are many formats to choose from so I'll link it instead.

http://library.cirr.com/Microsoft/SQL-Server-v7/html/ca-co_1.htm

If you wish to zero out the time like your post implies, you can try this:

select cast(convert(varchar, getdate(), 101) as datetime)

Singspiel

convert(datetime, convert(varchar, getdate(), 101)) – Remanent

broken link. New link for the page library.cirr.com/Microsoft/SQL-Server-v7/html/ca-co_1.htm – Natelson

Answer 7

declare @CurrentDate datetime
set @CurrentDate = dateadd(dd, datediff(dd, 0, getdate()), 0)

--or--

select dateadd(dd, datediff(dd, 0, MyDateColumn), 0) as DateOnly
from tblX

Remanent

Answer 8

In my searches I came across the following solution, it strips time out of UTC time only, but I found it interesting, so I thought someone else would too:

FUNCTION TrimDate(@dt AS DATETIME) RETURNS DATETIME
BEGIN
    RETURN CAST(CAST((@dt - 0.500000038580247) AS INT) AS DATETIME) 
END

I would presume that it runs quickly since all it's doing is rounding and casting.

Deflective