Get the half of the year (like quarter)

Question

Hi guys,
I need to get the "half" of the year.
I am using the following...
Case
When CAST(DATEPART(quarter, Stock.VALUEDATE) as int)= 1 then '1'
When CAST(DATEPART(quarter, Stock.VALUEDATE) as int)= 2 then '1'
When CAST(DATEPART(quarter, Stock.VALUEDATE) as int)= 3 then '2'
When CAST(DATEPART(quarter, Stock.VALUEDATE) as int)= 4 then '2'
Else 'UnKnown'
End AS 'Half',
Is there any more elegant solution?  something like
DATEPART(half,Stock.ValueDate) AS 'Month'
Thanks.

Answer 1

this is the same as your logic, but using month... and in one line:
datepart(month,stock.[VALUEDATE])<=(6) then '1' else '2' end)
Or you can use Quarter:
datepart(quarter,stock.[VALUEDATE])<=(2) then '1' else '2' end)
Also, you may want to use 'Semester' rather than 'Half'.  The term 'Semester' suggests a date range, while 'Half' does not.... ALSO, in another field, you may want to concatenate the year to get a string result like '2013S1'.  Having the year with
the semester, quarter, or month, will help with grouping and other date based calculations.
here is the datepart function
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174420.aspx