The Zen of Getdate() ...

Question

I read this on MSDN:  "(GetDate) --- Returns the current database system timestamp as a datetime value without the database time zone offset.".

What does the "time zone offset" refer to?  Whenever I use getdate() it  returns the proper time for my location (i.e. GMT -8)

TIA,

edm2

Answer 1

What is your SQL Server version?

See 

select SYSDATETIME(), getdate(), GETUTCDATE()

and help for 

GETUTCDATE

GETDATE() returns your server's local time.

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Answer 2

Sorry I forgot to mention it! Sql 2008

Answer 3

The offset is not filled automatically:

SELECT SYSDATETIME() AS SYSDATETIME;				-- 2013-01-09 22:33:43.5390546
SELECT SYSDATETIMEOFFSET() AS SYSDATETIMEOFFSET;	-- 2013-01-09 22:33:43.5390546 +00:00
SELECT SYSUTCDATETIME() AS SYSUTCDATETIME;			-- 2013-01-09 22:33:43.5390546
SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP AS [CURRENT_TIMESTAMP];	-- 2013-01-09 22:33:43.537
SELECT GETDATE() AS GETDATE;						-- 2013-01-09 22:33:43.537
SELECT GETUTCDATE() AS GETUTCDATE;					--2013-01-09 22:33:43.537

It can be set like:

BOL "DECLARE @datetimeoffset datetimeoffset(4) = '12-10-25 12:32:10.1234 +01:0';
DECLARE @time time(3) = @datetimeoffset;

SELECT @datetimeoffset AS '@datetimeoffset ', @time AS 'time';"

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb630289.aspx

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Kalman Toth SQL 2008 GRAND SLAM
New Book: SQL Server 2012 Programming

Answer 4

What they are trying to say is that the value returned does not indicate in which time zone the value relates to. This is in difference to sysdatetimeoffset().

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Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, [e-mail]