I run into this problem all the time.

I want to write a quite routine in the System Log window to Mass Update some records (eg my previous Mass Delete via System Log window blog post). I want to find all records before a certain date, but SOQL never likes my date format, eg:

select Id from Opportunity where Expiry_Date__c < 2010-01-01

Yes, it is possible to convert it to Timezone format and do it this way:

select Id from Opportunity where Expiry_Date__c < 2008-01-01T00:00:00Z

but I’ve always thought that silly when comparing against a Date field.

So, I eventually figured out that I can do it this way:

select Id, Name, LastLoginDate from User where LastLoginDate > :Date.valueOf('2008-01-01')

Of course, this only works within the context of Apex, such as the System Log window. It won’t work in pure SOQL tools like SOQL Explorer. Here’s an example:

Opportunity[] opps = [select Id from Opportunity where Expiry_Date__c < :Date.valueOf('2010-01-01')];
System.Debug(opps.size());

The Bottom Line

• Date strings can’t be entered into SOQL
• Option 1: Use Timezone format: 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z
• Option 2: Convert from string: :Date.valueOf(’2010-01-01′)