Using SQL Server, which is the fastest or best practice method to use for date retrieval? Is there a difference between CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and GetDate()?
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CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is standard ANSI SQL, and so is theoretically one tiny little island of 'don't need to change' amongst your thousands of SQL Server-specific lines of SQL if you ever need to move databases....
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6You can also use `{fn now()}` equivalently if you want to go *really* old-school. – brianary Oct 22 '15 at 15:37
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CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is part of the ANSI SQL spec. GETDATE() is a SQL Server-specific function inherited from the original Sybase code on which SQL Server is based.
They do exactly the same thing, though.
ahsteele
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Dylan Beattie
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My vote is for CURRENT_TIMESTAMP for 'portability' reasons i.e. why be SQL Server -specific when there is a direct SQL-92 equivalent?
PS why was it not named getdatetime()? Now that SQL Server 2008 has a DATE and TIME data type, we can hope to get support for SQL-92's CURRENT_DATE and CURRENT_TIME, at which point getdate() could be potentially even more confusing.
onedaywhen
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