DateDiff Returning Dates and Not Integer Values I've added a [DAYS_FROM_TODAY] column to my table to calculate the number of days between today's date and the date a check was written for each record in that table.

I used the following code to update the table:

UPDATE [dbo].[Unpaid]
SET [DAYS_FROM_TODAY] = DATEDIFF(dd, CHECK_DATE, GETDATE())


However when I look at the top 1,000 records of the [dbo].[Unpaid] table, the [DAYS_FROM_TODAY] column has the following appearance instead of integers:

DAYS_FROM_TODAY

1900-09-03 00:00:00.000

1900-01-23 00:00:00.000




Both the CHECK_DATE and DAYS_FROM_TODAY columns are datetime types.
Am I missing an important step?
It's converting the integer to a datetime- the column is a datetime. 

You're seeing the datetime conversion of the results of the DATEDIFF function. Implicit conversion from integer to datetime is in days beginning with 1/1/1900 as 0.

  SELECT CAST(1 AS DATETIME)


Returns

1900-01-02 00:00:00.000


If you want to store the integer result in the column, just change the data type to integer.