Generate date range in between 2 dates - sql

Question

for the last couple of hours I have been breaking my head over this.
I want to create a result set which contains a series of dates like this:
2011-07-05
2011-07-04
2011-07-03
2011-07-02
2011-07-01
2011-06-30
2011-06-29
2011-06-28
...
Ideally between 2 dates given. But If I can say the last 30 days or the last 100 days from now that would be fine also.
Normally I would this with a CTE like this
;WITH Dates AS
(
SELECT CONVERT(DATE, GETDATE()) [Date]
UNION ALL
SELECT DATEADD(DAY,-1, [Date])
FROM Dates
WHERE [Date] > DATEADD(DAY, -30, CONVERT(DATE, GETDATE()))
)
SELECT [Date]
But I am not allowed to use any statements that can't be executed in a subquery. The program I am using executes queries like this:
Select *
From (
TheQuery
) as t1
This means I can't use declares, no stored procedures, no CTEs..
Is there any way I can obtain the dataset I need with these limitations?
I am using azure SQL

Answer 1

You can use a recursive cte if you put it in a table valued function
CREATE FUNCTION FnDateRange
(
#startDate date,
#endDate date
)
RETURNS #DateRange Table
(myDate date)
AS
begin
with Dates_rte as
(
select #startDate myDate
union all
select cast(dateadd(day,1,myDate) as date)
from Dates_rte
where cast(dateadd(day,1,myDate) as date) <= #endDate
)
insert into #DateRange
select * from Dates_rte option (maxrecursion 0)
return
end
GO
select * from fnDateRange('2017-07-01','2017-07-06')

Answer 2

If you dont't want create a calendar table or a number table, nor use existing table to generate numbers/ date (see for example https://sqlperformance.com/2013/01/t-sql-queries/generate-a-set-1)
you could use something like this:
SELECT DATEADD(DAY, -B.N1+1, CONVERT(DATE, GETDATE())) AS D1
FROM
(SELECT 1 AS N1 UNION ALL SELECT 2 UNION ALL SELECT 3 UNION ALL SELECT 4 UNION ALL SELECT 5 UNION ALL SELECT 6 UNION ALL SELECT 7 UNION ALL SELECT 8 UNION ALL SELECT 9 UNION ALL SELECT 10) A
CROSS JOIN (SELECT 1 AS N1 UNION ALL SELECT 2 UNION ALL SELECT 3 UNION ALL SELECT 4 UNION ALL SELECT 5 UNION ALL SELECT 6 UNION ALL SELECT 7 UNION ALL SELECT 8 UNION ALL SELECT 9 UNION ALL SELECT 10) B

Answer 3

DECLARE #fromdate DATE
DECLARE #todate DATE
DECLARE #tcaldate Table (CalenderDate Date);
set #fromdate='2017-04-17'
set #todate='2017-05-13'
INSERT INTO #tcaldate SELECT TOP (DATEDIFF(DAY, #fromdate, #todate) + 1)
Date = DATEADD(DAY, ROW_NUMBER() OVER(ORDER BY a.object_id) - 1, #fromdate)
FROM sys.all_objects a
CROSS JOIN sys.all_objects b;
Select * from #tcaldate
Hope this helps...

Answer 4

Well, I think the easiest way is to create calendar table and in subquery just select dates between dates.
You can do this by this query:
CREATE TABLE dbo.Calendar ([Date] date)
DECLARE #startDate date, #endDate date
SET #startDate = '2000-01-01'
SET #endDate = '2020-12-31'
WHILE #startDate <= #endDate
BEGIN
INSERT INTO dbo.Calendar
SELECT #startDate
SET #startDate = DATEADD(DD,1,#startDate)
END
Selecting dates:
Select *
From dbo.Calendar WHERE [Date] BETWEEN #date1 AND #date2