Trunc(sysdate) in SQL Server
Recommended:
DATEADD(dd, 0, DATEDIFF(dd, 0, GETDATE()))This is another alternative, but it's risky because of casting to a FLOAT. It's also been demonstrated to not scale performance as well as the DATEADD/DATEDIFF approach.
CAST(FLOOR(CAST(GETDATE() AS FLOAT)) AS DATETIME)
Another option is to use CONVERT (MSSQL 2008 and later) and either use an appropriate style or use a style that you can then SUBSTRING. I have no idea about the performance compared to the dateadd/datediff solution though.
e.g.
SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(nvarchar(30), GETDATE(), 120), 1, 16)
Returns:
2012-01-03 15:30
Example using group that lists rows created per minute (presupposes a 'created' datetime column):
SELECT SUBSTRING(CONVERT(nvarchar(30), created, 120), 1, 16) as [minute], COUNT(1) as [per min]FROM fooGROUP BY SUBSTRING(CONVERT(nvarchar(30), created, 120), 1, 16)