If you’re familiar with PostgreSQL, you might know that you can use the EXTRACT() and the DATE_PART() functions to extract the month from a date. But those functions only allow you to extract the month number.
What if you need the month name?
You can get the month name from a date by using the TO_CHAR() function. This function returns a string based on the timestamp and the template pattern you provide as arguments.
It can be easy to forget that the T-SQL FORMAT() function provides locale-aware formatting. Locale-aware means that the locale can affect the results. In other words, the exact output you get will depend on the locale.
By default, the function uses the language of the current session to determine the locale. However, this can be overridden by passing a “culture” argument to the function. Doing this allows you to provide results for a particular locale without having to change the language of the current session.
This article contains examples of how locale can affect the results when using the FORMAT() function in SQL Server.
This article provides a reference for the custom numeric format specifiers that can be used when formatting numbers using the FORMAT() function in SQL Server. Examples included.
In SQL Server, the FORMAT() function enables you to format date/time and number values as a formatted string by passing in a “format string” as the second argument (the first argument is the value that’s being formatted).
Here’s an example of this function in action:
FORMAT(@date, 'dd/MM/yyyy');
In this case the format string is dd/MM/yyyy.
This particular format string specifies that the @date value should be formatted with a two-digit day, two-digit month, and a four-digit year, in that order, and with forward slashes as the separators.
This would result in something like this:
21/05/2019
This article provides a reference for the custom date and time format specifiers that can be used when formatting dates and/or times using the FORMAT() function in SQL Server, along with examples.
You can combine any of these format specifiers to produce a customized format string. See below for a code example and an explanation on how custom format strings work.
This article provides a list of the standard date and time format strings that can be used when formatting dates and/or times using the FORMAT() function in SQL Server, along with examples using different cultures and data types.
These are the standard date and time format specifiers that are supported by the .NET Framework, and therefore, SQL Server. Each standard date and time format string is an alias for a custom date and time format string.
In SQL Server, you can use the FORMAT() function to format date/time and number values as strings. In particular, the function provides “locale-aware” formatting, and the function accepts a “culture” argument, which allows you to specify a culture or language to use for the actual format. For example, you can pass en-us to ensure the results are formatted in US English format.
The culture argument is optional, so if you don’t provide it, the output will be determined by the language of the current session.
The FORMAT() function accepts any culture supported by the .NET Framework as an argument (you’re not limited to the languages explicitly supported by SQL Server).
One of the cultures supported by the .NET Framework is the invariant culture. The invariant culture is culture-insensitive. More specifically, this culture is associated with the English language but not with any country/region.
To specify that FORMAT() should output the results using the invariant culture, simply use "iv" for the culture argument (the third argument).
When formatting a date using the FORMAT() function in SQL Server, the date will be formatted according to the language of your local session. However, you can override this by specifying a culture to use, or using a custom date format.
This article demonstrates how to explicitly specify a German date format by using the optional “culture” argument of the FORMAT() function. It also demonstrates how to use your own custom date format if that is more desirable.
This article demonstrates how to explicitly format a date in Great Britain English format when using the T-SQL FORMAT() function in SQL Server.
You may or may not need to use this argument, depending on the language of your local session. However, here’s how to explicitly specify Great Britain English date format.
In SQL Server, you can use the T-SQL FORMAT() function to display a date in the desired format. This function accepts an optional “culture” argument, which you can use to specify US date format.
You may or may not need to use this argument, depending on the language of your local session. However, here’s how to explicitly specify US date format.