DB2 Integer YYYYMMDD to a date MM/DD/YYYY within SQL

Question

I am extracting an integer from a DB2 table that serves as a date, for example 20140101 is how it is stored. we want to see it as 01/01/2014.  Problem is you cannot CAST it as a date because it is an integer. We currently use this piece of code to
get into the proper format:
SUBSTR(CAST(INDV_DOB AS VARCHAR(8)),5,2) ||'/'|| SUBSTR(CAST(INDV_DOB AS VARCHAR(8)),7,2) ||'/'|| SUBSTR(CAST(INDV_DOB AS VARCHAR(8)),1,4) AS "DOB",
So the above works but it is still not a true date and therefore I cannot do date calculations. I can dump it to Excel and reformat but I need it to be a true date in SQL. Can you help? 

Answer 1

>> I am extracting an integer from a DB2 table that serves as a date, for example 20140101 is how it is stored. we want to see it as 01/01/2014. <<
No, you want to see it as “yyyy-mm-dd”, since this is the only ISO-8601 format allowed in ANSI/ISO Standard SQL. 
>> Problem is you cannot CAST it as a date because it is an integer.<<
Can you fire or kill the moron who did this to you? Why are you using VARCHAR(n) when the string are fixed? The only thing he did right was to keep the sorting order of display dates.
Here is the correct string to date expression:
 CAST (SUBSTRING (CAST (@x AS CHAR(8)), 1,4)+ '-'
         + SUBSTRING (CAST (@x AS CHAR(8)), 5,2) + '-'
         + SUBSTRING (CAST (@x AS CHAR(8)), 7,2)
         AS DATE)
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