SQL Working with Dates

Look at the following table:

Now we want to select the records with an OrderDate of "2008-11-11" from the table above.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE OrderDate='2008-11-11'

The result-set will look like this:

OrderId	ProductName	OrderDate
1	Geitost	2008-11-11
3	Mozzarella di Giovanni	2008-11-11

Note: Two dates can easily be compared if there is no time component involved!

Now, assume that the "Orders" table looks like this (notice the added time-component in the "OrderDate" column):

If we use the same SELECT statement as above:

SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE OrderDate='2008-11-11'

we will get no result! This is because the query is looking only for dates with no time portion.

Tip: To keep your queries simple and easy to maintain, do not use time-components in your dates, unless you have to!

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