title: Curly braces in T-SQL
body: <p>I've come across the following t-sql:</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT {d'9999-12-31'}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Which returns <code>9999-12-31 00:00:00.000</code>.</p>
  
  <p>This seems to be converting the type of the string literal to a <code>DATETIME</code>.  I can't find any documentation on this syntax and I'm wondering if there are any variations, for example if I have a literal <code>1</code> but want to represent this in a <code>BIGINT</code> without using <code>CONVERT()</code>/<code>CAST()</code>.</p>
  
  <p>Can anyone provide any further information on this syntax?  Thanks.</p>