The style parameter of convert provides a variety of date display formats for converting datetime or smalldatetime data to char or varchar. The number argument you supply as the style parameter determines how the data is displayed. The year can be displayed in either 2 digits or 4 digits. Add 100 to a style value to get a 4-digit year, including the century (yyyy).

Following is a table of the possible values for style and the variety of date formats you can use. When you use style with smalldatetime, the styles that include seconds or milliseconds will show zeros in those positions.

Table 10-13: Converting date formats with the style parameter

Without Century (yy)	With Century (yyyy)	Standard	Output
-	0 or 100	Default	mon dd yyyy hh:mm AM (or PM)
1	101	USA	mm/dd/yy
2	2	SQL standard	yy.mm.dd
3	103	English/French	dd/mm/yy
4	104	German	dd.mm.yy
5	105		dd-mm-yy
6	106		dd mon yy
7	107		mon dd, yy
8	108		hh:mm:ss
-	9 or 109	Default + milliseconds	mon dd yyyy hh:mm:sss AM (or PM)
10	110	USA	mm-dd-yy
11	111	Japan	yy/mm/dd
12	112	ISO	yymmdd

The default values, style 0 or 100, and 9 or 109, always return the century (yyyy).

Following is an example of the use of convert's style parameter:

select convert(char(12), getdate(), 3)

This converts the current date to style 3, dd/mm/yy.