SQL Server adding the slashes to the date on the fly

Question

I am trying to figure out how to add some sort of mask to my data. Currently I have a query like this:

SELECT [EmployeeTC_No] AS \"Employee TC#\"
      ,[pye_nla         


        

Answer 1

What you really need to do is fix your datatype of your column. varchar is not a one size fits all data type and should not be used to store dates. Like I said, 09282015 is not "after" 06242019, but according to your data, it is.

You can fix your data by doing the below:

USE testing;
GO

--Change the data to the ISO yyyyMMdd format
UPDATE dbo.testing
SET HireDate = CONVERT(varchar(8),CONVERT(date,STUFF(STUFF(SeparationDate,5,0,'/'),3,0,'/'),101),112),
    SeparationDate = CONVERT(varchar(8),CONVERT(date,STUFF(STUFF(SeparationDate,5,0,'/'),3,0,'/'),101),112);
GO

--Change the data types
ALTER TABLE dbo.testing ALTER COLUMN HireDate date;
ALTER TABLE dbo.testing ALTER COLUMN SeparationDate date;
GO

--And now you can select, and change the datatype to a format, with ease
SELECT [EmployeeTC_No] AS [Employee TC#],
       [pye_nlast] AS [Name Last],
       [pye_nfirst] AS [Name First],
       [Dept] AS [Department],
       [pye_status] AS [Active],
       CONVERT(varchar(10),[HireDate],101) AS [Hire Date],
       CONVERT(varchar(10),[SeparationDate],101) AS [Separation Date]
  FROM [testing].[dbo].[testing];

Answer 2

This is not ideal, since you appear to not be storing dates as a date type. If they are varchars, and you want to just add slashes for presentation, you can insert them where needed. This is assuming you always have a 8char date:

SELECT STUFF(STUFF(your_col, 3, 0, '/'), 6, 0, '/')