Data conversions seem to be very easy in Perl. So why then do other languages struggle so much with them. The T-SQL code will not allow me to compile code that converts a varchar string type into an int, even when the varchar is an interger and can be nothing else (because of my business logic that the SQL admittedly does not know about). Even so, it makes a solution to the problem unsolvable I think. Please prove me wrong. The code below will not compile. Instead I get ‘Incorrect syntax near 'CAST'’. 

DECLARE @number_of_years AS NVARCHAR(2)

if @Method LIKE 'RSD_____%' or @Method LIKE 'RMS_______%' begin
    SET @number_of_years = (@yearto-@yearfrom)+1 
end


if @Method LIKE 'RSD_t%' begin

    if (SELECT SUBSTRING(@Method, 21, 1)) = '0' begin
        SET @number_of_years = (SELECT SUBSTRING(@Method, 22, 1))  
    
    end
    else begin
        SET @number_of_years = (SELECT SUBSTRING(@Method, 21, 2))
    end

end 


CAST (@number_of_years AS INT)

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In reply to Datatypes. A Perl T-SQL comparison by Win

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