In Databricks, you can convert a string representing a date in the YYYYMMDD format to a date type using the to_date function:

SQL

SELECT to_date(‘20230521’, ‘yyyyMMdd’) AS converted_date;

This query will output:

converted_date
--------------
2023-05-21

Explanation:

1. to_date('20230521', 'yyyyMMdd'):

   • '20230521': The input string in YYYYMMDD format.
   • 'yyyyMMdd': The format specification tells Databricks how to interpret the input string.

2. AS converted_date: This renames the resulting column to converted_date for clarity.

Important Notes:

• Spark SQL DateType: The resulting date is in the standard Spark SQL DateType format (yyyy-MM-dd).
• Error Handling: If the input string does not match the specified format (yyyyMMdd), the to_date function will raise an error.
• Alternative: You can also use the cast function if you don’t need to specify a custom format:
  SQL

  SELECT cast(‘20230521’ AS date) AS converted_date;

  However, this assumes the date string is already in the default format recognized by Spark (yyyy-MM-dd).