SQL computing and reusing fiscal year calculation in sql query - sql

Question

I have a condition in my SQL query, using Oracle 11g database, that depends on a plan starting or ending with in a fiscal year:
(BUSPLAN.START_DATE BETWEEN (:YEAR || '-04-01') AND (:YEAR+1 || '-03-31')) OR
(BUSPLAN.END_DATE BETWEEN (:YEAR || '-04-01') AND (:YEAR+1 || '-03-31'))
For now, I am passing in YEAR as a parameter. It can be computed as (pseudocode):
IF CURRENT MONTH IN (JAN, FEB, MAR):
USE CURRENT YEAR // e.g. 2015
ELSE:
USE CURRENT YEAR + 1 // e.g. 2016
Is there a way I could computer the :YEAR parameter within in an SQL query and reuse it for the :YEAR parameter?

Answer 1

CTEs are easy, you can make little tables on the fly. With a 1 row table you just cross join it and then you have that value available every row:
WITH getyear as
(
SELECT
CASE WHEN to_char(sysdate,'mm') in ('01','02','03') THEN
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM sysdate)
ELSE
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM sysdate) + 1
END as ynum from dual
), mydates as
(
SELECT getyear.ynum || '-04-01' as startdate,
getyear.ynum+1 || '-03-31' as enddate
from getyear
)
select
-- your code here
from BUSPLAN, mydates -- this is a cross join
where
(BUSPLAN.START_DATE BETWEEN mydates.startdate AND mydates.enddate) OR
(BUSPLAN.END_DATE BETWEEN mydates.startdate AND mydates.enddate)
note, values statement is probably better if Oracle has values then the first CTE would look like this:
VALUES(CASE WHEN to_char(sysdate,'mm') in ('01','02','03') THEN
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM sysdate)
ELSE
EXTRACT(YEAR FROM sysdate) + 1)
I don't have access to Oracle so I might have bugs typos etc since I didn't test.

Answer 2

In the code you shared there is a problem and a potential problem.
Problem, implicit conversion to date without format string.
In (BUSPLAN.START_DATE BETWEEN (:YEAR || '-04-01') AND (:YEAR+1 || '-03-31')) two strings are being formed and then converted to dates. The conversion to date is going to change depending on the value of NLS_DATE_FORMAT. To insure that the string is converted correctly to_date(:YEAR || '-04-01', 'YYYY-MM-DD').
Potential problem, boundary at the end of the year when time <> midnight.
Oracle's date type holds both date and time. A test like someDate between startDate and endDate will miss all records that happened after midnight on endDate. One simple fix that precludes use of indexes on someDate is trunc(someDate) between startDate and endDate.
A more general approach is to define date ranges and closed open intervals. lowerBound <= aDate < upperBound where lowerBound is the same asstartDateabove andupperBoundisendDate` plus one day.
Note: Some applications used Oracle date columns as dates and always store midnight, if your application is of that sort, then this is not a problem. And check constraints like check (trunc(dateColumn) = dateColumn) would make sure it stays that way.
And now, to answer the question actually asked.
Using subquery factoring (Oracle's terminology) / common table expression (SQL Server's terminology) one can avoid repetition within a query.
Instead of figuring out the proper year, and then using strings to put together dates, the code below starts by getting January 1 at Midnight of the current calendar year, trunc(sysdate, 'YEAR')). Then it adds an offset in months. When the months are Jan, Feb, Mar, the current fiscal year started last year on 4/1, or nine months before the start of this year. The offset is -9. Else the current fiscal year started 4/1 of this calendar year, start of this year plus three months.
Instead of end date, an upper bound is calculated, similar to lower bound, but with the offsets being 12 greater than lower bound to get 4/1 the following year.
with current_fiscal_year as (select add_months(trunc(sysdate, 'YEAR')
, case when extract(month from sysdate) <= 3 then -9 else 3 end) as LowerBound
, add_months(trunc(sysdate, 'YEAR')
, case when extract(month from sysdate) <= 3 then 3 else 15 end) as UpperBound
from dual)
select *
from busplan
cross join current_fiscal_year CFY
where (CFY.LowerBound <= busplan.start_date and busplan.start_date < CFY.UpperBound)
or (CFY.LowerBound <= busplan.end_date and busplan.end_date < CFY.UpperBound)
And yet more unsolicited advise.
The times I've had to deal with fiscal year stuff, avoiding repetition within a query was low hanging fruit. Having the fiscal year calculations consistent and correct among many queries, that was the essence of the work. So I'd recommend a developing PL/SQL package that centralizes fiscal calculations. It might include a function like:
create or replace function GetFiscalYearStart(v_Date in date default sysdate)
return date
as begin
return add_months(trunc(v_Date, 'YEAR')
, case when extract(month from v_Date) <= 3 then -9 else 3 end);
end GetFiscalYearStart;
Then the query above becomes:
select *
from busplan
where (GetFiscalYearStart() <= busplan.start_date
and busplan.start_date < add_months(GetFiscalYearStart(), 12))
or (GetFiscalYearStart() <= busplan.end_date
and busplan.end_date < add_months(GetFiscalYearStart(), 12))