How to convert a “dd/mm/yyyy” string to datetime in SQL Server?

Question

I tried this

SELECT convert(datetime, \'23/07/2009\', 111)

but got this error

The conversion of a varchar data type to a datetime

Answer 1

SQL Server by default uses the mdy date format and so the below works:

SELECT convert(datetime, '07/23/2009', 111)

and this does not work:

SELECT convert(datetime, '23/07/2009', 111)

I myself have been struggling to come up with a single query that can handle both date formats: mdy and dmy.

However, you should be ok with the third date format - ymd.