Check If Date is Greater Than Today in SQL

You can handle and manipulate date and time values within a database using SQL queries. You need to filter records based on date comparisons, like checking if a date is greater than today. We will query this using our own sample data as given below.

Date Comparisons

You can use various comparison operators, like >, <, =, >=, and <= to compare dates in SQL. You can retrieve records based on the relative values of date fields using these operators.

Syntax

The basic syntax to check if a date is greater than today in SQL is given as below

SELECT column1, column2, columnN 
FROM table_name 
WHERE date_column > 
CURRENT_DATE;

Here, date_column is the field containing the date values you want to compare. "CURRENT_DATE" is a keyword in SQL that represents the current date.

Example

Consider you have created a table named EVENTS using the CREATE TABLE statement as shown below

CREATE TABLE EVENTS (
   EVENT_ID INT NOT NULL,
   EVENT_NAME VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
   EVENT_DATE DATE NOT NULL,
   LOCATION VARCHAR(50),
   PRIMARY KEY (EVENT_ID)
);

Now, you can insert values into this table using the INSERT statement as given below

INSERT INTO EVENTS VALUES
(1, 'Ramesh Meetup', '2024-12-15', 'Ahmedabad'),
(2, 'Khilan Workshop', '2024-09-10', 'Delhi'),
(3, 'Kaushik Seminar', '2022-11-25', 'Kota'),
(4, 'Chaitali Webinar', '2021-10-05', 'Mumbai'),
(5, 'Hardik Conference', '2024-09-20', 'Bhopal'),
(6, 'Komal Symposium', '2019-09-30', 'Hyderabad'),
(7, 'Muffy Hackathon', '2023-08-15', 'Indore'),
(8, 'Ramesh Training', '2020-12-01', 'Ahmedabad'),
(9, 'Khilan Lecture', '2024-10-15', 'Delhi'),
(10, 'Komal Networking', '2021-11-10', 'Hyderabad');

Now, you can view it using below command

SELECT * FROM EVENTS;

The table will be created like this

Retrieving Future Events

You can use the below SQL query to fetch all events that are scheduled after today

SELECT EVENT_NAME, EVENT_DATE 
FROM EVENTS 
WHERE EVENT_DATE > CURRENT_DATE;

The above query will produce a table listing only those events whose dates are after today

Comparing Dates Using Different Formats

If the dates in your table are stored in different formats, you may need to convert these dates to a standard date format before comparison. SQL has various date functions like DATE_FORMAT() and TO_DATE() (depending on the SQL dialect you are using) to handle different date formats.

Example

Suppose the "EVENT_DATE" in the EVENTS table is stored as a string in the format 'DD-MM-YYYY'. You can convert it to a date format and then compare it with the current date.

SELECT EVENT_NAME, EVENT_DATE 
FROM EVENTS 
WHERE STR_TO_DATE(EVENT_DATE, '%d-%m-%Y') > CURRENT_DATE;

Output

The query above converts the EVENT_DATE to the date format and then retrieves events with dates greater than today

Aliasing Date Comparisons in SELECT Statement

You can have more meaningful output and make the result set more readable by aliasing the output of your date comparisons using the "AS" keyword.

Example

Below is an example where we alias the result of the date comparison as 'Future Events'

SELECT EVENT_NAME, EVENT_DATE 
AS 'Future Events' 
FROM EVENTS 
WHERE EVENT_DATE > CURRENT_DATE;

Output

This query produces the below table with an alias