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What is the difference between CURRENT_TIMESTAMP and GETDATE() in SQL Server?

SELECT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP, GETDATE()
senshin
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mehdi lotfi
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1 Answers1

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CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is an ANSI SQL function whereas GETDATE is the T-SQL version of that same function.

One interesting thing to note however, is that CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is converted to GETDATE() when creating the object within SSMS. Both functions retrieve their value from the operating system in the same way. There is no difference between the two, performance wise.

CURRENT_TIMESTAMP is the recommended usage because it is portable to any ANSI compliant database, where as GETDATE() is not.

Luke Peterson
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    Is there any appreciable difference in performance? If I'm, say, generating log records by the thousands per second, I might care if `CURRENT_TIMESTAMP` has some additional overhead associated with it. – Ellesedil Nov 21 '14 at 18:50