[badmullah]

using sql server 2005

I have a column (A) that has been defined as varchar and has date values in it
by someone who did not know that it can have a datetime attribute instead.
I am trying to fetch values such as 3/4/2004 or 3.4.2004 or Null from thsi varchar column
and move them into another column (B) that has datatime attribute.

can someone type the commands that I need to execute to upate column B from column A please?

Thanks

[protocode]

DATETIME stores in this format YYYY-MM-DD H:i:s. Here is a quick set of date formatting code you may find useful. I assume your dates list the month first (MM/DD/YYYY) and not the day (DD/MM/YYYY). If they do list the day first, it is no problem, just a simple switch on the return. Also, this allows you to define the separating character i.e. mm / dd / yyyy or mm . dd . yyyy. For example $var = dateNormtoUnix("/", $date); or $var = dateNormtoUnix(".", $date);

This is for a date formatted with the month first MM/DD/YYYY:

PHP Code:

    function dateNormtoUnix($dformat, $beginDate)

{

        $date_parts1=explode($dformat, $beginDate);

        

    return date("Y-m-d",mktime(0,0,0,$date_parts1[0],$date_parts1[1],$date_parts1[2]));

} 

This is for a date formatted with the day first DD/MM/YYYY:

PHP Code:

    function dateNormtoUnix($dformat, $beginDate)

{

        $date_parts1=explode($dformat, $beginDate);

        

    return date("Y-m-d",mktime(0,0,0,$date_parts1[1],$date_parts1[0],$date_parts1[2]));

} 

You query each date then, clean them up and store them in the correct field.