I encountered this error today using DBI to update a SQL Server 2000 database using DBD::ODBC.

The problem code is as follows:

    my $sql = q{select * from accountaction where action_date > ?};
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
    $sth->execute('01-01-2006');
    $sth->finish;
[download]

The same code, but without the bound parameter worked correctly:

    my $sql = q{select * from accountaction where action_date > '01-01
+-2006'};
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
    $sth->execute();
    $sth->finish;
[download]

The issue was that DBD::ODBC did not like the MM-DD-YYYY date format.
Changing it to the following fixed the error for me:

    my $sql = q{select * from accountaction where action_date > ?};
    my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
    $sth->execute('2006-01-01');
    $sth->finish;
[download]

This likely occurs because SQL Server can have different date formats, e.g. DD-MM-YYYY for some locales. So to be safe it only allow the YYYY-MM-DD format.

This response is being added to a somewhat old node because it is the only relevant one I found using Super Search, and I would like to save future searchers some trouble.