Question

Ok, So I am getting the following error, which seems odd.

Msg 4864, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
Bulk load data conversion error (type mismatch or invalid character for the specified codepage) for row 129, column 4 (BirthDay).

My CSV File is formatted in the following Format

1,Aaron,Aaberg,19700926,MALE

But if I do the following:

INSERT INTO Test.BulkInsert (FirstName, LastName, Birthday, Gender)
VALUES ('1' 'Test', 'Me', 19851118, 'Male')

Works fine? What gives? I have tried everything under the sun. If I use INT as the data type for Birthday import works fine. I have tried to then CAST and or CONVERT the int and I get an arithmetic overflow obviously.

I forgot to give you the table Code:

CREATE TABLE Test.BulkInsert (ID int NOT NULL,
                  FirstName VARCHAR(40),
                  LastName VARCHAR(40),
                  BirthDay SMALLDATETIME,
                          Gender VARCHAR(6)

)
GO

Answer 1

Have you checked your regional settings? I believe that BCP will use that when trying to import a datetime column.

Alternatively (and what it seems most people do), you can import into a staging table as a VARCHAR and then do an INSERT into your real table with a CONVERT statement over the datetime column.