TRY_CAST

SQL Server

TRY_CAST( expression AS data_type [ ( length ) ] )

• expression: The value to be converted. The expression must be a valid expression of any one of the data types in the character string and binary data type category, except for the xml data type.
• data_type: The target data type to convert the expression into. It can be any valid data type into which SQL Server can implicitly convert the expression data type.
• length: An optional parameter to specify the length of the target data type. This is only applicable for some data types like varchar where specifying the length is mandatory.

Example

SELECT TRY_CAST('2012-06-30' AS DATE) AS Result;

Output

Result
----------
2012-06-30

Explanation

In the above example, the TRY_CAST function tries to cast the string '2012-06-30' as a DATE datatype. Since the conversion is successful, it returns the date 2012-06-30.