Question

I have a datetime field in a SQL Server 2005 table that has values like this:

2012-04-23 09:00:00.000
2012-04-23 14:00:00.000

The minutes, seconds, and microseconds are always zero.

I need to display a “time slot” (basically, the time plus one hour) like this:

2012/04/23  09:00 AM - 10:00 AM
2012/04/23  02:00 PM - 03:00 PM

I got what I needed using this:

SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR, TimeSlot, 20), 1, 10) + '  ' +
       RIGHT('00000' + LTRIM(SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(24), TimeSlot, 109), 13, 5)), 5) + ' ' +
       SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(19), TimeSlot, 100),18,2) + ' - ' +
       RIGHT('00000' + LTRIM(SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(24), DATEADD(hh, 1, TimeSlot), 109), 13, 5)), 5) + ' ' +
       SUBSTRING(CONVERT(VARCHAR(19), DATEADD(hh, 1, TimeSlot), 100), 18, 2) AS TimeSlot
FROM MyTable

It works, but I feel so dirty.

I know I could do it easier in the code (VB .NET), but assume I have to do it in SQL.

Is there any cleaner way to do this?

Answer 1

Taking the built-in conversions, I would use something like this:

SELECT 
    convert(varchar, [TimeSlot], 111) + ' ' +
    RIGHT(convert(varchar, [TimeSlot], 0), 7) + ' - ' +
    RIGHT(convert(varchar, dateadd(hour, 1, [TimeSlot]), 0), 7)
FROM
    [MyTable];

this gives you the line you want as

2012/04/23  9:00AM - 10:00AM

in detail:

• convert(varchar, @dt, 111) converts the datetime to the Japanese format yy/mm/dd
• convert(varchar, @dt, 0) converts the datetime to Apr 23 2012 9:00AM so we can use the time part
• dateadd(hour, 1, @dt) adds one hour to the current datetime value

you can test it without tables with:

DECLARE @dt DATETIME
SET @dt = '2012-04-23 09:00:00'

PRINT convert(varchar, @dt, 111) + ' ' +
      RIGHT(convert(varchar, @dt, 0), 7) + ' - ' +
      RIGHT(convert(varchar, dateadd(hour, 1, @dt), 0), 7);