Unable to sort a date column correctley

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Unable to sort a date column correctley

Author

Topic

emyk
Yak Posting Veteran

57 Posts

Posted - 2013-11-07 : 11:26:36

I am unable to sort a date column (VARCHAR TYPE column) correctley.
The DATE column has dates entry with yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm and yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm format. So I am trying to cleanup the format so that I can do an order by DESC. Any suggestion?


11/07/2013 10:28:14
11/07/2013 10:30:03
11/07/2013 10:47:57
2013-04-21 12:55
2013-04-21 13:00
2013-07-25 00:30
2013-07-25 00:30
2013-07-25 00:30

visakh16
Very Important crosS Applying yaK Herder

52326 Posts

Posted - 2013-11-07 : 11:49:34

why not just keep them as dates itself and then sort?
or if you cant change column datatype do casting and order by it.

Make sure you read this
http://visakhm.blogspot.in/2011/12/why-iso-format-is-recommended-while.html

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sz1
Aged Yak Warrior

555 Posts

Posted - 2013-11-13 : 06:46:30

Select Convert(Varchar(10), YourDate,112) as MyDate
From MyTable
Order By MyDate DESC

To Include time part use 113

SZ1
Please help me to enable me to help others!

Jeff Moden
Aged Yak Warrior

652 Posts

Posted - 2013-11-23 : 14:00:01

quote:
Originally posted by emyk

I am unable to sort a date column (VARCHAR TYPE column) correctley.
The DATE column has dates entry with yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm and yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm format. So I am trying to cleanup the format so that I can do an order by DESC. Any suggestion?
11/07/2013 10:28:14
11/07/2013 10:30:03
11/07/2013 10:47:57
2013-04-21 12:55
2013-04-21 13:00
2013-07-25 00:30
2013-07-25 00:30
2013-07-25 00:30

As has been suggested or implied by the others, you should never store dates or times, properly formatted or not, in a VARCHAR column except for I/O staging tables. Period. No good ever comes of it as you're finding out right now.

Provided that all of the dates and times are valid in your column and provided that the width of the column is at least 23, the following code will update the dates/times in the column into a sortable ODBC canonical format, which isn't quite the same as ISO8601 but very similar. The details are in the comments in the code.

--===== Conditionally drop the test table to make reruns in SSMS easier
     IF OBJECT_ID('tempdb..#TestTable','U') IS NOT NULL
        DROP TABLE #TestTable
;
--===== Setup a test table for demonstration purposes.
     -- This is NOT a part of the solution.
 SELECT SomeVarcharDateTime = CONVERT(VARCHAR(24),d.SomeVarcharDateTime)
   INTO #TestTable
   FROM (
         SELECT '11/07/2013 10:28:14' UNION ALL
         SELECT '11/07/2013 10:30:03' UNION ALL
         SELECT '11/07/2013 10:47:57' UNION ALL
         SELECT '2013-04-21 12:55' UNION ALL
         SELECT '2013-21-04 12:55' UNION ALL --Added invalid date/time
         SELECT '2013-04-21 13:00' UNION ALL
         SELECT '2013-07-25 00:30' UNION ALL
         SELECT '2013-07-25 25:30' UNION ALL --Added invalid date/time
         SELECT '2013-07-25 00:30' UNION ALL
         SELECT '2013-07-25 00:30'
        )d(SomeVarcharDateTime)
;
--===== Show what we have before
 SELECT * FROM #TestTable
;
--===== Reformat only valid dates in the table and mark the invalid ones
     -- with a leading "*"
 UPDATE #TestTable
    SET SomeVarcharDateTime =
            CASE 
            WHEN ISDATE(SomeVarcharDateTime) = 1
            THEN CONVERT(CHAR(23),CAST(SomeVarcharDateTime AS DATETIME),121)
            ELSE '*' + SomeVarcharDateTime
            END
  WHERE LEFT(SomeVarcharDateTime,1) <> '*' --Ignores previous bad rows 
;
--===== Show what the reformatting did in sorted order
 SELECT * FROM #TestTable ORDER BY SomeVarcharDateTime
;

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for "Row By Agonizing Row".

First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
"Stop thinking about what you want to do to a row... think, instead, of what you want to do to a column."

When writing schedules, keep the following in mind:
"If you want it real bad, that's the way you'll likely get it."

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