Parsing and Formatting

Concepts: sqlDateFormat

Different systems use different date formats. APIs might send "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z" while CSV files contain "01/15/2024". SQL provides functions to parse strings into timestamps and format timestamps into strings. Parsing Strings to Dates Format codes: yyyy=year, MM=month, dd=day, HH=hour, mm=minute, ss=second. Formatting Dates to Strings ISO 8601 Format ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) is the international standard. Use it for APIs and file interchange to avoid ambiguity. Common Format Patterns The MMM abbreviation for month names may be locale-dependent. For cross-regional systems, use numeric formats like yyyy-MM-dd to avoid language differences in output.