Stripping the Time Off of a DateTime Field in SQL Server

I find myself occasionally having to return just the date portion of a DateTime.  Every time I have to remember what I did the last time.

Here are a few solutions I have tried.  You can apply them to whatever your need is.

Let's say you have a field in your table called DateOfExecution and that date in one record is 2012-09-01 15:14:55.540

Method 1 - Convert to a NVarChar and Format It.
CONVERT(nvarchar(20),  DateOfExecution  , 101)

This method returns 09/01/2012.  This lets you just compare the date by itself, but you have to compare it as a string.

Method 2 - Cast It to a Float, Take Off the Decimal Portion With Floor, and Cast It Back to a DateTime
CAST( FLOOR( CAST(  DateOfExecution   AS FLOAT ) ) AS DATETIME )

This method returns 2012-09-01 00:00:00.000, leaving a time portion there, but the time portion is all zeros.  This can be useful if you want to get two dates into the same time and compare the entire DateTime.


Method 3 - Pull the Year, Month, and Day Out of the Date as Strings, Concatenate Them Together, and Cast Them Back to a DateTime
CAST(
(
STR( YEAR(  DateOfExecution   ) ) + '/' +
STR( MONTH(  DateOfExecution   ) ) + '/' +
STR( DAY(  DateOfExecution   ) )
)
AS DateTime
)

This method is more complicated and also returns 2012-09-01 00:00:00.000.

Method 4 - Pull the Year, Month, and Day Out of the Date as Strings, Trim the Individual Parts, and Concatenate Them Together

rtrim(ltrim(STR( YEAR(  DateOfExecution   ) ))) + '/' +
rtrim(ltrim(STR( MONTH(  DateOfExecution    ) ))) + '/' +
rtrim(ltrim(STR( DAY(  DateOfExecution   ) )))

This method returns a string that looks like this 2012/9/1.  You could apply some formatting and/or concatenate the values in a different order to make it look the way you want it to.