Advice on Query 'Expiry Date' GETDATE() + 5 Days?

  • Hi. I have a query that works. I was asked to modify so that the query only returns records where the expiry date is 5 days from current date.

    Here is what I have:

    SELECT CONVERT(VARCHAR(12), QExpiry.FieldName) AS Expiry

    Returns record(s) where expiry date = Jun 3 2008 / Jun 20 2008/ Jul 19 2008

    On the WHERE clause I added:

    WHERE QExpiry.FieldName <= GETDATE()+5

    Returned record = Jun 3 2008

    Question:

    Is there a better way of doing the above or was my approach correct?

    Many Thanks,

    Phil.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says. The bartender promptly serves up a beer. "How much will that be?" asks the neutron. "For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge."

    Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, 'I think I've lost an electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first says, 'Yes, I'm positive... '

    Tommy Cooper

  • you can use the dateadd() function

  • Thanks. I now have a related question regards the report side that I will post to the relevent forum.

    Many Thanks,

    Phil.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says. The bartender promptly serves up a beer. "How much will that be?" asks the neutron. "For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge."

    Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, 'I think I've lost an electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first says, 'Yes, I'm positive... '

    Tommy Cooper

  • A possible issue - maybe minor, maybe not depending on your user needs:

    Getdate() returns a date time stamp including hh:mm:ss.000.

    This is not an issue if your expiry column is a simple date. However, I notice that your first query truncates the time stamp with "convert". To be on the safe side you may want to truncate expiry with:

    where cast(convert(varchar, expiry, 101) as smalldatetime) <= dateadd(dd, 5, getdate())

    Otherwise, if there are hh:mm:ss.000 values in the expiry column, and there are multiple entries on a single day, your result set for a given day could change based on the time of day that your query runs.

    OK, I worry too much...

    George

  • gwade (5/30/2008)


    A possible issue - maybe minor, maybe not depending on your user needs:

    Getdate() returns a date time stamp including hh:mm:ss.000.

    This is not an issue if your expiry column is a simple date. However, I notice that your first query truncates the time stamp with "convert". To be on the safe side you may want to truncate expiry with:

    where cast(convert(varchar, expiry, 101) as smalldatetime) <= dateadd(dd, 5, getdate())

    Otherwise, if there are hh:mm:ss.000 values in the expiry column, and there are multiple entries on a single day, your result set for a given day could change based on the time of day that your query runs.

    OK, I worry too much...

    George

    This will force an index scan instead of being able to use an index seek (if an index exists on expiry). A better method that will allow an index seek is:

    where expiry <= dateadd(day, 5, dateadd(day, datediff(day, 0, getdate()), 0))

    Or: where expiry <= dateadd(day, datediff(day, 0, getdate() + 5), 0)

    Jeff

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

    How to post questions to get better answers faster
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  • Excellent point about the index scan, Jeff.

    I'm wondering with the new expresssion, if the date that the query is run is 2008-05-30 13:25:23.723 and the expiry value is 2008-06-04 13:19:05.880, does it matter that the value is not <= dateadd(day, 5, dateadd(day, datediff(day, 0, getdate()), 0)) ?

    Does that mean we now need to increment the days added to 6, and make the comparison operator simply less than (or alternately, change the datediff numeric argument from 0 to -1). In user terms, do they want to consider an expiry value of 2008-06-04 13:19:05.880 as expiring on 2008-06-04 or 2008-06-05? If the answer is 04, then I think we need to add an extra day.

    It seemed like a simple enough question to start with... 🙂

    George

  • Thanks for your feedback guys.

    Phil.

    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says. The bartender promptly serves up a beer. "How much will that be?" asks the neutron. "For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge."

    Two hydrogen atoms walk into a bar. One says, 'I think I've lost an electron.' The other says 'Are you sure?' The first says, 'Yes, I'm positive... '

    Tommy Cooper

  • gwade (5/30/2008)


    Excellent point about the index scan, Jeff.

    I'm wondering with the new expresssion, if the date that the query is run is 2008-05-30 13:25:23.723 and the expiry value is 2008-06-04 13:19:05.880, does it matter that the value is not <= dateadd(day, 5, dateadd(day, datediff(day, 0, getdate()), 0)) ?

    Does that mean we now need to increment the days added to 6, and make the comparison operator simply less than (or alternately, change the datediff numeric argument from 0 to -1). In user terms, do they want to consider an expiry value of 2008-06-04 13:19:05.880 as expiring on 2008-06-04 or 2008-06-05? If the answer is 04, then I think we need to add an extra day.

    It seemed like a simple enough question to start with... 🙂

    George

    Yes, we would probably want to use just a <, but whether or not we need to add a day all depends upon what the parameters need to be.

    If the end date is inclusive - then we need to add one. If not, then we don't need to do anything at all. There are a couple of ways to approach this - all depends upon how this is called. If this is put into a stored procedure, I would have this setup as an inclusive parameter and do something like:

    CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.MyProc

    @end_date datetime = NULL

    AS

    SET @end_date = dateadd(day, 1, coalesce(@end_date, getdate()));

    SET @end_date = dateadd(day, datediff(day, 0, @end_date), 0);

    SELECT columns

    FROM table

    WHERE expiry < @end_date;

    GO

    And it would be called as: Execute dbo.MyProc '2008-06-04';

    Or, we could pass in the number of days in the future:

    CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.MyProc

    @futureDays int = 5

    AS

    SET @end_date = dateadd(day, @futureDays + 1, getdate());

    SET @end_date = dateadd(day, datediff(day, 0, @end_date), 0);

    SELECT columns

    FROM table

    WHERE expiry < @end_date;

    GO

    And this would be called as: Execute dbo.MyProc 5;

    Jeff

    Jeffrey Williams
    “We are all faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as impossible situations.”

    ― Charles R. Swindoll

    How to post questions to get better answers faster
    Managing Transaction Logs

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