SQL SERIES
How to Write Common
Date Functions
When querying data from a database, you will frequently encounter
the date datatype. Depending on what you want to achieve, you may
need to extract subset information from the date column, perform
some operation, and so on.
SQL provides a variety of date functions that can assist you with your
task. In this post, we will look at various common date functions in
SQL and some examples to show how they work. Without further ado
let's get started.
This post will concentrate on three of the most popular SQL flavors:
PostgreSQL, MySQL, and SQL server. We will start with PostgreSQL
functions and then present the variants of the other flavors if they
differ from PostgreSQL.
Date Data types
Date data types are one of the built in data types in SQL that you use
to store date values. A date value is usually stored across all
database management systems or flavors in the timestamp format,
that is YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS – for example 2022-01-01 10:08:56.
Before we get started, we will be using this table we created to
explain the function we will be talking about later in the post. You can
create it using the following query. Note the SQL flavor we are using
is PostgreSQL.
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS student;
CREATE TABLE student (
student_id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
student_name VARCHAR(30),
admitted_date DATE
);
INSERT INTO student VALUES (11, 'Ibrahim', '2012-10-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (7, 'Taiwo', '2013-12-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (9, 'Nurain', '2012-11-21');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (8, 'Joel', '2012-10-31');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (10, 'Mustapha', '2015-11-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (5, 'Muritadoh', '2011-09-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (2, 'Yusuf', '2022-05-03');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (3, 'Habeebah', '2012-11-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (1, 'Tomiwa', '2013-04-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (4, 'Gbadebo', '2008-10-01');
INSERT INTO student VALUES (12, 'Tolu', '2009-11-21');
SELECT * FROM student;
How to use the Now() function
You use the Now() function to return the current timestamp (date
+time) of the computer system where the database management
system is currently hosted. In PostgreSQL it also includes the time
zone of the timestamp as shown below.
SELECT NOW();
The function for getting the current timestamp in MySQL is also the
same as in PostgreSQL – Now(). But in SQL server, you use the
function CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.
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How to use the current_date function
This function, as the name implies, gets the current date of the
computer system on which the SQL database is running. When
retrieving the current date in PostgreSQL, you do not need to use a
parenthesis, as you can see below:
SELECT current_date;
In MySQL, you use the CURDATE() function to get the current date,
but SQLServer uses GETDATE ().
How to use the Extract() or Date_Part() functions
You use the Extract or date part functions to extract a certain part or
unit of a date or date column.
Let's start with the Extract function. Its syntax looks like this:
EXTRACT(unit FROM date/date_column)
The unit part of the Extract function is a unit you can extract from a
date such as DAY, WEEK , YEAR , QUARTER , and so on.
Say for instance in the above student table we've created earlier you
wish to extract the year the students were admitted from the
admitted_date column you can achieve that using the EXTRACT()
function as shown below.
SELECT
*,
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM admitted_date) As "Year of Admission"
FROM student;
The EXTRACT() function is only available in only PostgreSQL and
MySQL and works similarly. Another Function that works like
EXTRACT() is DATEPART() and it is also available in PostgreSQL and
SQLServer. Let's look at how the DATEPART() function works.
The syntax for Datepart in PostgreSQL looks a little bit different from
the one SQLServer uses in that it has an underscore between the
date and part. You also need to pass in the unit in a single quote as
shown below:
SELECT DATE_PART('Year', admitted_date)
FROM student;
For SQLServer there won't be any underscore between the date and
part, and the unit will not be enclosed in single quotes. For example
the above result can be generated in SQLServer as shown below.
SELECT DATEPART(YEAR, admitted_date)
FROM student;
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How to add intervals or parts to dates
Intervals are units that you can add to a date – for example a days
interval, time interval, and so on.
For example, say you want to add 1 day interval to all the dates in a
particular table. In PostgreSQL there is no dedicated function you
can use to add an interval to a particular date. Instead, you can do
this using arithmetic operations.
The syntax for achieving that is shown below:
SELECT date/date_column + INTERVAL "# unit"
Where # is an integer such as 3, 4, and so on, and unit can be Days,
Year, and so on. Click here for a list of units that can be passed as an
interval.
Say, for instance, that you want to add an interval of 3 days to the
admitted_date column in the student table. You can do this in
PostgreSQL using the following query:
SELECT
*,
admitted_date + INTERVAL '3 Days' AS "3_daysadded"
FROM student;
Now that you've seen how to add intervals to dates in PostgreSQL,
let's see how it is done in MySQL and SQLServer. In MySQL and
SQLServer there are functions that you can use to add intervals to
dates.
In my SQL, the name of the function is called DATE_ADD() and the
syntax is shown below:
DATE_ADD(date/date_column, INTERVAL value unit)
For example, you can get the above table using MySQL by typing the
following code:
SELECT
*,
DATE_ADD(admitted_date, INTERVAL 3 DAY) AS "3_daysadded"
FROM student;
In SQLServer, the function you use is similar to the one in MySQL but
with a small difference. The syntax for the function used is shown
below:
DATEADD (datepart/unit , number , date/date_column)
You can replicate the above table in SQLServer like this:
SELECT *,
DATEADD (day , 3 , admitted_date) AS "3_daysadded"
FROM student;
For example, you can get the above table using MySQL by typing the
following code:
SELECT
*,
DATE_ADD(admitted_date, INTERVAL 3 DAY) AS "3_daysadded"
FROM student;
How to subtract intervals from dates
Subtracting intervals from dates in PostgreSQL works like adding
intervals, except that the operator changes from plus to minus. For
example, say you want to subtract 3 days from the admitted_date
column. You can do this using the below code:
SELECT
*,
admitted_date - INTERVAL '3 Days' AS "3_dayssubtracted"
FROM student;
In MySQL, you use the DATESUB function to subtract intervals from
the date. You can replicate the above table in MySQL using the
following query:
SELECT
*,
DATE_SUB(admitted_date, INTERVAL 3 DAY) AS "3_dayssubtracted"
FROM student;
In SQLServer, you still use the DATEADD function, but instead of
specifying a positive value in the function parameter, you use a
negative value. It looks like this:
SELECT *,
DATEADD (day , -3 , admitted_date) AS "3_dayssubtracted"
FROM student;
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How to subtract two dates
To subtract two dates in PostgreSQL, there is also not a dedicated
function. But you can use arithmetic operators to achieve your
desired result.
SELECT '2012-10-31'::date -'2012-05-01'::date AS days;
In MySQL, there is a function called DATE_DIFF() that you can use to
achieve this, while for SQLServer you use the DATEDIFF() function.
Click here to learn more about it.
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