Convert a SQL Server datetime to a shorter date format

Question

I have a datetime column in SQL Server that gives me data like this 10/27/2010 12:57:49 pm and I want to query this column but just have SQL Server ret

Answer 1

In addition to CAST and CONVERT, if you are using Sql Server 2008, you can convert to a date type (or use that type to start with), and then optionally convert again to a varchar:

declare @myDate date
set @myDate = getdate()
print cast(@myDate as varchar(10))

output:

2012-01-17