Get row where datetime column = today - SQL server noob

Question

In sql 2005, instead of building a query from dateparts year, month and date,

is there an more succinct way of writing the where clause?

Answer 1

I've used a UDF to do this on datetime columns going back to SQL 2000.

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[GETDATENOTIME](@now datetime)
RETURNS smalldatetime
AS
BEGIN
    RETURN (CONVERT(smalldatetime, CONVERT(varchar, @now, 112)))
END

Usage:

DECLARE @date smalldatetime
SET @date = '4/1/10'
SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE dbo.GETDATENOTIME(date) = @date

Not the most efficient thing in the world (YMMV depending on your table) but it does the job. For tables where I know I'll be selecting based on date-without-time a lot, I'll have a column specifically for that with a default set to dbo.GETDATENOTIME(GETDATE()).