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Year Code from Order Date (SUBSTR)

EasyFreeQuerying BasicsString Functions

A legacy report stores order_date as an ISO string ('YYYY-MM-DD'). Extract just the year portion using SUBSTR — no date functions.

Show order_id, order_date, and year_code (SUBSTR(order_date, 1, 4)). Order by order_id. Limit 15.

When a date is stored as a fixed-width string, SUBSTR is faster than strftime and works on any engine that has substring slicing. Use this trick whenever the data is ISO-formatted and the prefix is what you need.

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Schema

orders

order_idcustomer_idproductcategoryquantitypricetotalorder_datecountrystatus
11Laptop ProElectronics11299.991299.992024-01-15USAcompleted
22Wireless MouseElectronics249.9999.982024-01-16Canadacompleted
33Office ChairFurniture1349.99349.992024-01-17USAcompleted

Expected output: year_code = '2024'

Hint

The hint for this one spells out most of the query, so it stays in the editor. Reach for SELECT, SUBSTR, String Functions, and open the hint there if you stall.

Concepts

SELECT SUBSTR String Functions

Practise the topic: SQL practice questions · String function practice

Read the concept: SQL cheat sheet

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