Microsoft® SQL Server 2012 Unleashed

FORMAT

The new FORMAT function in SQL Server 2012 returns a formatted value based on a specified format and optional culture argument. The FORMAT function is primarily intended to be used for locale-aware formatting of date/time and number values as strings. For general data type conversions, you should continue to use CAST or CONVERT.

The syntax of the new FORMAT function is as follows:

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FORMAT ( value, format [, culture ] )

The format argument must contain a valid .NET Framework format string, either as a standard format string (for example, "C" or "D") or as a pattern of custom characters for dates and numeric values (for example, "MMMM DD, yyyy (dddd)"). Table 44.2 lists the standard number format strings and ...