Question

SSIS SQL 2005: Convert String to Datetime

Asked by: sinjin

Hi all,
I have an SSIS package that parses a fixed-width text file.  One of the columns is for the Termination Date of an employee and is formatted yyyymmdd (e.g. 20081126).  If the employee has not been terminated the data is a series of 0s (i.e 00000000).
I need to get this data into a SQL 2005 table field of type datetime.
I taken the following actions to solve this to no avail.
1) In the flat file source I have changed to column datatype from string to date
2) I have tried using the Data Conversion task in the SSIS designer and remapping the columns
The error I get is:
[OLE DB Destination [643]] Error: There was an error with input column "TerminationDate" (5817) on input "OLE DB Destination Input" (656). The column status returned was: "The value could not be converted because of a potential loss of data.".

I prefer to use SSIS to deal with this.  Any ideas?
Thanks in advance.

PS: I will not be able to respond until AFTER the Thanksgiving Holiday so please be patient.  I'll check back on Monday, 1 Dec 08.

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Asked On
2008-11-26 at 16:38:46ID23939174
Topic

SSIS

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: HoggZillaPosted on 2008-11-26 at 19:22:18ID: 23047512

Because of the zeros for non-terminated employees you can't use a straight Data Conversion. What you need to do is a Derived Column.

In the expression of the Derived Column you will need to do a replace of the zeros with either a NULL or valid date equivelent, ie 19000101.

I will wirte an expression for you. Give me a few minutes.

 

by: nmcdermaidPosted on 2008-11-26 at 19:41:35ID: 23047564

1) In the flat file source I have changed to column datatype from string to date

I believe you'll need to leave it as string. I think SSIS will try and automatically cast it for yuo, which won't work. So leave it as string and then follow Hogzillas advice.

 

by: HoggZillaPosted on 2008-11-26 at 19:43:59ID: 23047570

In your Derived Column, you need a combination of two expressions.

(DT_DATE)REPLACE(ZeroString,"00000000",NULL(DT_WSTR,1))

and

SUBSTRING(DateString,1,4) + "/" + SUBSTRING(DateString,5,2) + "/" + SUBSTRING(DateString,7,2)

 

by: HoggZillaPosted on 2008-11-26 at 19:51:33ID: 23047589

The final expression will be this, assuming your column name is DateAsString.

(DT_DATE)SUBSTRING(REPLACE(DateAsString,"0000",NULL(DT_WSTR,4)),1,4) + "/" + SUBSTRING(REPLACE(DateAsString,"00",NULL(DT_WSTR,2)),5,2) + "/" + SUBSTRING(REPLACE(DateAsString,"00",NULL(DT_WSTR,2)),7,2) 
                                              
1:

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by: HoggZillaPosted on 2008-11-26 at 19:55:10ID: 23047597

Sorry, forgot to encapsulate the DT_DATE in parens. See below.

(DT_DATE)(SUBSTRING(REPLACE(DateAsString,"0000",NULL(DT_WSTR,4)),1,4) + "/" + SUBSTRING(REPLACE(DateAsString,"00",NULL(DT_WSTR,2)),5,2) + "/" + SUBSTRING(REPLACE(DateAsString,"00",NULL(DT_WSTR,2)),7,2))

                                              
1:

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by: sinjinPosted on 2008-12-01 at 09:47:13ID: 23070640

Hi,
There is definitely progess! Thank you.  All the rows are being inserted and the package executes but ALL rows have a null TermDate even if it wasn't 00000000 to begin with.  Any thoughts?

 

by: HoggZillaPosted on 2008-12-01 at 10:30:03ID: 23071000

I will be honest, I am having some trouble working with the NULL values. I removed them and substituted 01/01/1901 in place of the zeros. This will at least get it working for you. As a workaround you can run an SQL statement to replace the 01/01/1901 values to NULL.

(DT_DATE)(SUBSTRING(REPLACE( col ,"00","01"),5,2) + "/" + SUBSTRING(REPLACE( col ,"00","01"),7,2) + "/" + SUBSTRING(REPLACE( col ,"0000","1901"),1,4))

 

by: sinjinPosted on 2008-12-01 at 10:39:02ID: 23071088

Thank you!  That did it.  I know that 1/1//1901 can be ignored for business purposes so this is great.  Thanks again.

 

by: sinjinPosted on 2008-12-01 at 10:39:59ID: 31520643

Thanks again :-)

 

by: nupPosted on 2009-02-19 at 10:48:15ID: 23684726

how do I convert my date field '00000000', which is char(8) to datetime?

 

by: HoggZillaPosted on 2009-02-27 at 17:18:10ID: 23761114

You cannot convert this '00000000' to a datetime. You could convert to a NULL datetime.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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