Comparing dates stored as varchar

Question

I need to compare dates that are stored in my database as varchar against today\'s date.

Specifically, I need to exclude any records with a date that has passed.

Answer 1

If you HAVE TO store your dates as varchar (and as per other other answers, this is a poor practice), then using an ISO style format like yyyy-mm-dd should allow textual comparisons without issue. If your column is a date data type, and you're using SQL 2012 or later then use DATEFROMPARTS (or one of its variants) for date comparison, so

WHERE DateToCompare < DATEFROMPARTS (2019, 12, 31)

rather than

WHERE DateToCompare < '2019-12-31'

SQL handles the latter fine, but the former is more "correct".