sql server - bulk insert a date in YYYYMM format to date field in MS SQL table

Question

I have a large text file (more than 300 million records). There is a field containing date in YYYYMM format. Target field is of date type and I'm using MS SQL 2008 R2 server. Due to huge amount of data I'd prefer to use bulk insert. Here's what I've already done:

bulk insert Tabela_5
from 'c:users...able5.csv'
with
(
    rowterminator = '
',
    fieldterminator = ',',
    tablock
)
select * from Tabela_5

201206 in file turns out to be 2020-12-06 on server, whereas I'd like it to be 2012-06-01 (I don't care about the day). Is there a way to bulk insert date in such format to a field of date type?

kind regards maciej pitucha

Answer 1

Run SET DATEFORMAT ymd before the bulk insert statement

Note that yyyy-mm-dd and yyyy-dd-mm are not safe in SQL Server generally: which causes this. Always use yyyymmdd. For more, see best way to convert and validate a date string (the comments especially highlight misunderstandings here)