TRY_PARSE (Transact-SQL)

string_value

nvarchar(4000) value representing the formatted value to parse into the specified data type.

string_value must be a valid representation of the requested data type, or TRY_PARSE returns null.

data_type

Literal representing the data type requested for the result.

culture

Optional string that identifies the culture in which string_value is formatted.

If the culture argument is not provided, then the language of the current session is used. This language is set either implicitly, or explicitly by using the SET LANGUAGE statement. culture accepts any culture supported by the .NET Framework; it is not limited to the languages explicitly supported by SQL Server. If the culture argument is not valid, PARSE raises an error.

Returns the result of the expression, translated to the requested data type, or null if the cast fails.

Use TRY_PARSE only for converting from string to date/time and number types. For general type conversions, continue to use CAST or CONVERT. Keep in mind that there is a certain performance overhead in parsing the string value.

TRY_PARSE relies on the presence of .the .NET Framework Common Language Runtime (CLR).

This function will not be remoted since it depends on the presence of the CLR. Remoting a function that requires the CLR would cause an error on the remote server.

More information about the data_type parameter

The values for the data_type parameter are restricted to the types shown in the following table, together with styles. The style information is provided to help determine what types of patterns are allowed. For more information on styles, see the .NET Framework documentation for the System.Globalization.NumberStyles and DateTimeStyles enumerations.

More information about the culture parameter

The following table shows the mappings from SQL Server languages to .NET Framework cultures.

A. Simple example of TRY_PARSE

SELECT TRY_PARSE('Jabberwokkie' AS datetime2 USING 'en-US') AS Result

Result
---------------
NULL

(1 row(s) affected)

B. Detecting nulls with TRY_PARSE

SELECT
    CASE WHEN TRY_PARSE('Aragorn' AS decimal USING 'sr-Latn-CS') IS NULL
        THEN 'True'
        ELSE ‘False'
END
AS Result

Result
---------------
False

(1 row(s) affected)

C. Using IIF with TRY_PARSE and implicit culture setting

SET LANGUAGE English
SELECT IIF(TRY_PARSE('01/01/2011' AS datetime2) IS NULL, 'True', 'False') AS Result

Result
---------------
True

(1 row(s) affected)