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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-27T13:59:22+00:00

I have a project that I am working on that requires me to delete

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I have a project that I am working on that requires me to delete records from the database if they are atleast 3 years old.

I have something like this in DB2 SQL to get the date:

SELECT * FROM tableA
WHERE ADD_DATE < CHAR(CURRENT DATE-3 YEARS)

ADD_DATE is stored as Characters in my system, this is why I am converting

I know it is also possible to get the date and format it in VB.net which is the language I am using to call the SQL statements.

My question is whether it would be faster/better to get the date and perform the conversion inside the SELECT in SQL or would it be better to get the current date and convert it in VB.net and then use that date in the SQL statement. I’m thinking VB.net would be better because there are thousands of records that must be compared. I should be able to set it up in VB so that it only retrieves the date and converts it once but I am not sure what kind of performance hit each takes from these statements.

Thanks in advance.

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If all you are doing with a call to the database would be getting the date, then it would be faster to get it client-side and avoid the round-trip to the database.

    If you do it server side and you’re comparing your date in a single set-based operation then the time difference for that is negligible. If you do the check in something loop-based (a cursor or something) then you’ll be wasting time.

    It doesn’t sound like this is applicable to you, but for future reference be sure to take into consideration the possibility of the client and the database server being in different timezones. It could be safer to do it one way or the other based on the time zone your data is generated for.

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