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Databases The Solutions

Teacher Russell
Teacher Russell
16,873 Points

Checking for dates in a query.

Am I mistaken, or is it sometimes necessary, when running a query, to write the date "2017-04-20" and sometimes "2017-4-20"?

2 Answers

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

Date conversions are typically done with 2-digit months and days.

Have you seen anything in the courses where it was done differently?

Teacher Russell
Teacher Russell
16,873 Points

I can't remember what I was on at that moment..a quiz between videos probably. I was stuck on one, and it turned out to be the date. It wanted it written with one digit for the month that one time. It may have been that short practice after the SQL beginners course. It was looking for 2017-4-20. It would not accept 04, which was what I originally typed.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

That seems rather unusual. Usually the style of your answer will be the preferred format. Certainly the date functions for SQLite (used in the courses) all work that way.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

SQLite is a special case, as the fields are essentially type-less. But the functions provided for dates work with certain formats, and I believe they all use 2 digits for months.

Other databases usually have a dedicated format for dates, so the actual storage is independent from the format. And the format can be specified different ways using templates.

Teacher Russell
Teacher Russell
16,873 Points

In this practice video, the dates in the customer table were written with the single digit, which I didn't expect and didn't notice, as I had already developed the habit of writing it with 2. I can't remember the challenge, but as they were all very easy, I was probably going from memory and not actually looking at the table. The date was written out in the clue, and I was just looking at that. All dates were written 2017-4-20. Maybe someone had a too happy a 4-20:) Or maybe I shouldn't assume the date will be written any one way in a table.

Teacher Russell
Teacher Russell
16,873 Points

Thanks for the help and info. I appreciate it.