> I did not find and online MS SQL book. > Sean, can you send me the link to these? i think sean was referring to "books online" or BOL as it is also known here's the link to CAST and CONVERT -- http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/tsqlref/ts_ca-co_2f3o.asp that's the page i've used the most (for the style codes for the different date formats) and from there you can get anywhere else if you have a high speed connection, you can also download the entire thing, it's about 36megs http://www.microsoft.com/sql/techinfo/productdoc/2000/books.asp rudy