One requirement in any database implementation that I have ever worked on is that the notion of a point-in-time has to be represented in some way. The tool that I use on a regular basis, SQL Server, provides numerous datatypes that aid in the representation of a point-in-time and I’m sure that most people reading this will be au fait with them. ...

One of the most commonly used data types in SQL Server is [datetime] which unfortunately has some vagaries around how values get casted. A typical method for defining a [datetime] literal is to write it as a character string and then cast it appropriately. The cast syntax looks something like this: DECLARE @dt ...

A few days ago Aaron posted yet another fantastic entry in his Bad Habits series, this one discussing mishandling of date ranges in queries. This is a topic near and dear to me, having had to clean up a lot of poorly thought out code in the past few years. Aaron's post includes many examples, all of which boil down to the proper way to do the job, ...