If you’re getting SQL Server error Msg 8116 with text that reads Argument data type date is invalid for argument 1 of substring function, it’s because you’re passing the wrong data type to a function – in this case, the SUBSTRING() function.
You could also see the same error (Msg 8116) in many other contexts – it’s not limited to the SUBSTRING() function.
If you’re getting SQL Server error Msg 8114 that reads something like Error converting data type varchar to numeric, it’s probably because you’re trying to perform a data type conversion that fails due to the value not being able to be converted to the destination type.
It’s not because you can’t convert that type to the new type. It’s because of the value itself.
Continue readingIn SQL Server, an often used function is CAST(), which converts an expression of one data type to another. But if the cast doesn’t succeed, then it returns an error.
Enter TRY_CAST().
The TRY_CAST() function doesn’t return an error if the cast fails. Instead, it returns NULL.
There are some occasions however, where it will return an error.
Continue readingIn SQL Server, the TRY_CONVERT() function is very similar to the CONVERT() function, except that TRY_CONVERT() doesn’t return an error if the conversion fails (CONVERT() does).
Instead, the TRY_CONVERT() function returns NULL if the conversion doesn’t succeed.
There are some occasions however, where TRY_CONVERT() will return an error.
In SQL Server, the CONVERT() function converts an expression of one data type to another.
Here’s a quick overview of the function with examples.
Continue readingIn SQL Server, the CAST() function converts an expression of one data type to another.
Here’s a quick overview of the function with examples.
Continue readingBelow is a list containing the SQL Server data types, in order of precedence.
Continue readingMost of the major RDBMSs have functions that enable us to format numbers with commas as either the group separator, or the decimal separator.
Some RDBMSs also output certain numeric data types with commas in the relevant place.
Below are examples of formatting numbers with commas in some of the more popular DBMSs.
Continue readingBelow are three ways we can use T-SQL to return a list of databases in SQL Server.
Continue readingIf you’re receiving error Msg 8115, Level 16, Arithmetic overflow error converting int to data type numeric in SQL Server, it’s probably because you’re performing an operation that results in a data conversion error due to an out of range value.
This will often happen when you try to convert a number to a different data type, but it’s out of the accepted range for the new data type.
Continue reading