datetime - Change default date time format on a single database in SQL Server

Question

I need to change the date format from US (mm/dd/YYYY) to UK (dd/mm/YYYY) on a single database on a SQL server machine.

How can this be done?

I've seen statements that do this for the whole system, and ones that do it for the session, but I can't change the code now as it will have to go through QA again, so I need a quick fix to change the date time format.

Update

I realize that the date time has nothing to do with how SQL Server stores the data, but it does have a lot to do with how it parses queries.

I'm chucking raw data from an XML file into a database. The dates in the XML file are in UK date format.

Answer 1

You could use SET DATEFORMAT, like in this example

declare @dates table (orig varchar(50) ,parsed datetime)

SET DATEFORMAT ydm;

insert into @dates
select '2008-09-01','2008-09-01'

SET DATEFORMAT ymd;
insert into @dates
select '2008-09-01','2008-09-01'

select * from @dates

You would need to specify the dateformat in the code when you parse your XML data