T-SQL Cast versus Convert

Question

What is the general guidance on when you should use CAST versus CONVERT? Is there any performance issues related to choosing one versus the other? Is one closer to ANSI-SQL?

Answer 1

Cast is ansi, convert is not.

Answer 2

Convert has a style parameter for date to string conversions.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms187928.aspx

Answer 3

CONVERT is SQL Server specific, CAST is ANSI.

CONVERT is more flexible in that you can format dates etc. Other than that, they are pretty much the same. If you don't care about the extended features, use CAST.