RichardFox
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Reading timestamp type
A select of a timestamp field just returns <binary>. How do I have a look at the values in human-readable form?
Thanks,
Rich
Thanks,
Rich
Scott Pletcher
A "timestamp" column does not actually contain a date-time. In fact it has *no* relation to an actual date-time; it is more a binary counter of changes. Thus, there is no way to convert it to its corresponding datetime.
Hi RichardFox,
There is no human-readable form of the timestamp field. This simply contains an 8-digit binary value that is guaranteed to be unique within a database, similar to a GUID but not as unique. It doesn't really have anything to do with time or date values. (Well that is the Microsoft version anyway, the SQL-92 standard does have a timestamp definition but this is represented in SQL server by the DateTime datatype.)
Tim Cottee
There is no human-readable form of the timestamp field. This simply contains an 8-digit binary value that is guaranteed to be unique within a database, similar to a GUID but not as unique. It doesn't really have anything to do with time or date values. (Well that is the Microsoft version anyway, the SQL-92 standard does have a timestamp definition but this is represented in SQL server by the DateTime datatype.)
Tim Cottee
You're welcome to cast it to a bigint if you want but it won't provide you any more info than the binary version does.
ASKER
OK thanks. I really fail to see the usefulness of such a data type, a timestamp that is not really a timestamp! If you need a unique counter, you can use a row id. What is this type's purpose?
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Timestamp is not "unreadable". EM doesn't display any binary columns. Run you query in isqlw.exe, and you will see them.