I am trying to query my postgresql db to return results where a date is in certain month and year. In other words I would like all the values for a month-year.
The only way i've been able to do it so far is like this:
SELECT user_id
FROM user_logs
WHERE login_date BETWEEN '2014-02-01' AND '2014-02-28'
Problem with this is that I have to calculate the first date and last date before querying the table. Is there a simpler way to do this?
Thanks
With dates (and times) many things become simpler if you use >= start AND < end.
For example:
SELECT
user_id
FROM
user_logs
WHERE
login_date >= '2014-02-01'
AND login_date < '2014-03-01'
In this case you still need to calculate the start date of the month you need, but that should be straight forward in any number of ways.
The end date is also simplified; just add exactly one month. No messing about with 28th, 30th, 31st, etc.
This structure also has the advantage of being able to maintain use of indexes.
Many people may suggest a form such as the following, but they do not use indexes:
WHERE
DATEPART('year', login_date) = 2014
AND DATEPART('month', login_date) = 2
This involves calculating the conditions for every single row in the table (a scan) and not using index to find the range of rows that will match (a range-seek).
2014-12-01 & 2015-01-01. The second can be indexed too, but that's not trivial, i admit -- EXTRACT() seems more compatibe.
From PostreSQL 9.2 Range Types are supported. So you can write this like:
SELECT user_id
FROM user_logs
WHERE '[2014-02-01, 2014-03-01]'::daterange @> login_date
this should be more efficient than the string comparison
[from, to) or (from, to], making sure left or right side doesn't match the equal caseJust in case somebody land here... since 8.1 you can simply use:
SELECT user_id
FROM user_logs
WHERE login_date BETWEEN SYMMETRIC '2014-02-01' AND '2014-02-28'
From the docs:
BETWEEN SYMMETRIC is the same as BETWEEN except there is no requirement that the argument to the left of AND be less than or equal to the argument on the right. If it is not, those two arguments are automatically swapped, so that a nonempty range is always implied.
SELECT user_id
FROM user_logs
WHERE login_date BETWEEN '2014-02-01' AND '2014-03-01'
Between keyword works exceptionally for a date. it assumes the time is at 00:00:00 (i.e. midnight) for dates.
