How to parse string into date?

Question

How can I convert a String to a Date in T-SQL?

My test case is the string: \'24.04.2012\'

Answer 1

Although the CONVERT thing works, you actually shouldn't use it. You should ask yourself why you are parsing string values in SQL-Server. If this is a one-time job where you are manually fixing some data you won't get that data another time, this is ok, but if any application is using this, you should change something. Best way would be to use the "date" data type. If this is user input, this is even worse. Then you should first do some checking in the client. If you really want to pass string values where SQL-Server expects a date, you can always use ISO format ('YYYYMMDD') and it should convert automatically.