Conversion failed when converting datetime from character string

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GSquared SSC Guru Points: 260824 More actions · Answer 1

I guess it depends on what you want to do with a date that's a zero-length string. What does that represent, in terms of use/business logic?

If it means "we don't know the date", then use NullIf to turn it into a Null.

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Jason Selburg SSC-Insane Points: 24641 More actions · Answer 2

As Gsquared said. "It depends"

But if you just want to avoid the error message then use NULLIF:

declare @test-2 varchar(30)

Set @test-2 = ''

--Set @test-2 = '2009 12 17 22 31 00 000'

set @test-2=nullif(@test,'')

Select

DATEADD(hh, -5, CONVERT(DATETIME, SUBSTRING(@test,1,4) + '-' + SUBSTRING(@test,6,2) + '-' + SUBSTRING(@test,9,2) + ' ' +

SUBSTRING(@test,12,2) + ':' + SUBSTRING(@test,15,2) + ':00.000'))AS NextRun

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ssc_san SSCommitted Points: 1563 More actions · Answer 3

SSCommitted

Points: 1563

June 27, 2011 at 1:12 pm

Thanks Gsquared and Jason.

That fixed the issue.