Convert string to datetime - SQL

Question

I have a string parsed from XML which represents datetime. String format is: '20200915114000' - (YYYYMMDDhhmmss)

Is there a function in SQL Server to convert or parse this string to datetime or should I split string manually and concatenate it into datetime?

Answer 1

How to do this, in 3 steps:

C:\> SQLCMD
1> select convert(datetime,'20200915114000' )
2> go
Msg 241, Level 16, State 1, Server ZES, Line 1
Conversion failed when converting date and/or time from character string.
1> select convert(datetime,'20200915 114000' )
2> go
Msg 242, Level 16, State 3, Server ZES, Line 1
The conversion of a varchar data type to a datetime data type resulted in an out-of-range value.
1> select convert(datetime,'20200915 11:40:00' )
2> go

-----------------------
2020-09-15 11:40:00.000

(1 rows affected)
1>

Conclusion you need to add a space and 3 ':' in the string to convert '20200915114000' to '20200915 11:40:00'. After this a simple CONVERT will do the trick.

Answer 2

Solution to my problem:

declare @sDate char(14), @sDateOK char(20)

set @sDate = '20200915114000'    
set @sDateOK = substring(@sDate,1,8) + ' ' + substring(@sDate,9,2) + ':' +  substring(@sDate,11,2) + ':' +  substring(@sDate,13,2)

select convert(datetime,@sDateOK ) as Date