Convert month name to month number in SQL Server

Question

In T-SQL what is the best way to convert a month name into a number?

E.g:

\'January\' -> 1
\'February\' -> 2
\'March\' -> 3

Answer 1

Its quit simple, Take the first 3 digits of the month name and use this formula.

Select charindex('DEC','JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC')/4+1

Answer 2

I know this may be a bit too late but the most efficient way of doing this through a CTE as follows:

 WITH Months AS
    (
       SELECT 1 x
       UNION all
       SELECT x + 1
       FROM Months
       WHERE x < 12

     )
     SELECT x AS MonthNumber, DateName( month , DateAdd( month , x , -1 ))            AS MonthName FROM Months

Answer 3

How about this:

SELECT MONTH('March' + ' 1 2014') 

Would return 3.

Answer 4

How about this?

select DATEPART(MM,'january 01 2011') -- returns 1
select DATEPART(MM,'march 01 2011')  -- returns 3
select DATEPART(MM,'august 01 2011') -- returns 8

Answer 5

I think you may even have a separate table like a monthdetails (Monthno int, monthnames char(15)) and include values:

1 January
2 February 

.... and so on, and then join this table with your existing table in the monthnames column

SELECT t1.*,t2.Monthno from table1 
left outer join monthdetails t2
on t1.monthname=t2.monthnames
order by t2.Monthno 

Answer 6

You can use below code

DECLARE @T TABLE ([Month] VARCHAR(20))
INSERT INTO @T
SELECT 'January'
UNION
SELECT 'February'
UNION
SELECT 'March'`

SELECT MONTH('01-' + [Month] + '-2010') As MonthNumeric,[Month] FROM @T
ORDER BY MonthNumeric