SQL - Unable to Convert a string in to YYYYMMDD format

Question

I have a table that one of its columns is XML data type. This XML value includes a TimePeriod value that looks like this:

"{start:{align:'Start',date:'2011-05-20T00:00:00'}"

I managed to extract only the date from this string with the following query:

SELECT SUBSTRING(configuration.value('(/ActiveService/@TimePeriod)[1]','nvarchar(50)'), 
CHARINDEX('''', configuration.value('(/ActiveService/@TimePeriod)[1]','nvarchar(50)'),28)+1,10 )
FROM [MySystem].[dbo].[MyServices]

so i got this as the result: 2013-11-01

But, now i need to convert it to this format: YYYYMMDD

And when I'm using CONVERT to format 112 I Still get the same result: 2013-11-01

Why?

Answer 1

It you took value from xml as varchar, you cannot convert it into format YYYYMMDD (because it's already varchar), you have to convert it to date (or datetime first):

select convert(varchar(8), convert(datetime, 
    substring(
        @data.value('(/ActiveService/@TimePeriod)[1]','nvarchar(50)'), 29, 10
    ), 120), 112)

But in your case it could be easier just remove -, by replace(<your value>, '-', '').

sql fiddle demo