# Unable to successfully read sqlserver Date datatype \[ODBC, DataFrames\]

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/unable-to-successfully-read-sqlserver-date-datatype-odbc-dataframes/70072>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** data, database\
**Created:** [October 19, 2021, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/unable-to-successfully-read-sqlserver-date-datatype-odbc-dataframes/70072 "2021-10-19T22:22:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![vtomar](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/vtomar/32/18304_2.png) [@vtomar](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/vtomar)\
**Post date:** [October 19, 2021, 10:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/unable-to-successfully-read-sqlserver-date-datatype-odbc-dataframes/70072/1 "2021-10-19T22:22:02Z")

</div>

i have a very simple query:

```julia
using ODBC, Dates, DataFrames

query = "select id, convert(date, ColumnName1) as CalendarDate from table1"
conn = DBInterface.connect(ODBC.Connection, "ConnectionString");
statement = DBInterface.prepare(conn, query);
df = DBInterface.execute(statement) |> DataFrame

```

The above code returns `CalendarDate` as type String? but the string values look like this:

`"2000-01-1\0\0"`

The date is being incorrectly read. I am not sure what the \0s are and how to fix this?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bernhard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/bernhard/32/2619_2.png) [@bernhard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/bernhard)\
**Post date:** [October 20, 2021, 8:13pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/unable-to-successfully-read-sqlserver-date-datatype-odbc-dataframes/70072/2 "2021-10-20T20:13:01Z")

</div>

What is stored in `ColumnName1`?  
How about reading the raw data from that column and converting it in Julia to a date?

What database are you using?

I am not very familiar with databases, but the two queries below work fine for me. I would expect them to run on ODBC just as well.  
But your call `convert(date, ColumnName1)` is inverted compared to the syntax that I am using on a mysql database. Can you confirm that this is intentional?

```julia
conn = DBInterface.connect(MySQL.Connection, mysqlhostip, mysqluser, mysqlpassword;port=mysqlport)
DBInterface.execute(conn,"USE mysql;") #use database_name

julia> rs = DBInterface.execute(conn,"SELECT datetime from $(tblName);") |> DataFrame
5660×1 DataFrame
│ Row │ datetime │
│ │ DateTime │
├──────┼─────────────────────┤
│ 1 │ 2020-07-21T07:49:00 │
│ 2 │ 2020-07-21T07:52:00 │
│ 3 │ 2020-07-21T07:53:00 │
│ 4 │ 2020-07-21T08:02:00 │
│ 5 │ 2020-07-21T08:05:00 │
│ 6 │ 2020-07-21T08:07:00 │
│ 7 │ 2020-07-21T08:38:00 │
│ 8 │ 2020-07-21T08:51:00 │
⋮
│ 5652 │ 2021-10-20T19:24:00 │
│ 5653 │ 2021-10-20T19:25:00 │
│ 5654 │ 2021-10-20T19:27:00 │
│ 5655 │ 2021-10-20T19:29:00 │
│ 5656 │ 2021-10-20T19:38:00 │
│ 5657 │ 2021-10-20T19:43:00 │
│ 5658 │ 2021-10-20T19:58:00 │
│ 5659 │ 2021-10-20T20:01:00 │
│ 5660 │ 2021-10-20T20:06:00 │

julia> rs = DBInterface.execute(conn,"SELECT convert(datetime,date) as foo from $(tblName);") |> DataFrame
5660×1 DataFrame
│ Row │ foo │
│ │ Date? │
├──────┼────────────┤
│ 1 │ 2020-07-21 │
│ 2 │ 2020-07-21 │
│ 3 │ 2020-07-21 │
│ 4 │ 2020-07-21 │
│ 5 │ 2020-07-21 │
│ 6 │ 2020-07-21 │
│ 7 │ 2020-07-21 │

```