Best approach to remove time part of datetime in SQL Server

Question

Which method provides the best performance when removing the time portion from a datetime field in SQL Server?

a) select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, getdate(         


        

Answer 1

I think you mean cast(floor(cast(getdate()as float))as datetime)

real is only 32-bits, and could lose some information

This is fastest cast(cast(getdate()+x-0.5 as int)as datetime)

...though only about 10% faster(about 0.49 microseconds CPU vs. 0.58)

This was recommended, and takes the same time in my test just now: DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, getdate()), 0)

In SQL 2008, the SQL CLR function is about 5 times faster than using a SQL function would be, at 1.35 microseconds versus 6.5 microsections, indicating much lower function-call overhead for a SQL CLR function versus a simple SQL UDF.

In SQL 2005, the SQL CLR function is 16 times faster, per my testing, versus this slow function:

create function dateonly (  @dt datetime )
returns datetime
as
begin
return cast(floor(cast(@dt as float))as int)
end

Answer 2

Here's yet another answer, from another duplicate question:

SELECT CAST(CAST(getutcdate() - 0.50000004 AS int) AS datetime) 

This magic number method performs slightly faster than the DATEADD method. (It looks like ~10%)

The CPU Time on several rounds of a million records:

DATEADD   MAGIC FLOAT
500       453
453       360
375       375
406       360

But note that these numbers are possibly irrelevant because they are already VERY fast. Unless I had record sets of 100,000 or more, I couldn't even get the CPU Time to read above zero.

Considering the fact that DateAdd is meant for this purpose and is more robust, I'd say use DateAdd.

Answer 3

In SQL Server 2008, there is a DATE datetype (also a TIME datatype).

CAST(GetDate() as DATE)

or

declare @Dt as DATE = GetDate()

Answer 4

BEWARE!

Method a) and b) does NOT always have the same output!

select DATEADD(dd, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, '2013-12-31 23:59:59.999'), 0)

Output: 2014-01-01 00:00:00.000

select cast(convert(char(11), '2013-12-31 23:59:59.999', 113) as datetime)

Output: 2013-12-31 00:00:00.000

(Tested on MS SQL Server 2005 and 2008 R2)

EDIT: According to Adam's comment, this cannot happen if you read the date value from the table, but it can happen if you provide your date value as a literal (example: as a parameter of a stored procedure called via ADO.NET).

Answer 5

Strip time on inserts/updates in the first place. As for on-the-fly conversion, nothing can beat a user-defined function maintanability-wise:

select date_only(dd)

The implementation of date_only can be anything you like - now it's abstracted away and calling code is much much cleaner.