DATENAME() function in SQL Server 2005

The DATENAME() is quiet a handy function if you want to return a literal form (string) of the part of the date specified.

The syntax goes like:
DATENAME ( datepart ,date )

Where :
datepart - specifies the part of the date to return
date - datetime or smalldatetime expression

USAGE:

DECLARE @Dt datetime
SET @Dt = '2008-04-15 8:34:54.713'

SELECT DATENAME(year, @Dt) as 'Year'
-- Returns 2008

SELECT DATENAME(quarter, @Dt) as 'Quarter'
-- Returns 2

SELECT DATENAME(month, @Dt) as 'Month'
-- Returns April

SELECT DATENAME(dayofyear, @Dt) AS 'Day of Year';
-- Returns 106

SELECT DATENAME(day, @Dt) AS 'Day';
-- Returns 15

SELECT DATENAME(week, @Dt) AS 'Week';
-- Returns 16

SELECT DATENAME(weekday, @Dt) AS 'Weekday';
-- Returns Tuesday

SELECT DATENAME(hour, @Dt) AS 'Hour';
-- Returns 8

SELECT DATENAME(minute, @Dt) AS 'Minutes';
-- Returns 34

SELECT DATENAME(second, @Dt) AS 'Seconds';
-- Returns 54

SELECT DATENAME(millisecond, @Dt) AS 'Milliseconds';
-- Returns 713

About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, MCSD, MCAD, MCDBA, MCSE, is the founder of DotNetCurry, DNC Magazine for Developers, SQLServerCurry and DevCurry. He has also authored a couple of books 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls and a new one recently at The Absolutely Awesome jQuery CookBook.

Suprotim has received the prestigous Microsoft MVP award for nine times in a row now. In a professional capacity, he is the CEO of A2Z Knowledge Visuals Pvt Ltd, a digital group that represents premium web sites and digital publications comprising of Professional web, windows, mobile and cloud developers, technical managers, and architects.

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