SQL "between" not inclusive - sql

Question

I have a query like this:
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE created_at BETWEEN '2013-05-01' AND '2013-05-01'
But this gives no results even though there is data on the 1st.
created_at looks like 2013-05-01 22:25:19, I suspect it has to do with the time? How could this be resolved?
It works just fine if I do larger date ranges, but it should (inclusive) work with a single date too.

Answer 1

It is inclusive. You are comparing datetimes to dates. The second date is interpreted as midnight when the day starts.
One way to fix this is:
SELECT *
FROM Cases
WHERE cast(created_at as date) BETWEEN '2013-05-01' AND '2013-05-01'
Another way to fix it is with explicit binary comparisons
SELECT *
FROM Cases
WHERE created_at >= '2013-05-01' AND created_at < '2013-05-02'
Aaron Bertrand has a long blog entry on dates (here), where he discusses this and other date issues.

Answer 2

It has been assumed that the second date reference in the BETWEEN syntax is magically considered to be the "end of the day" but this is untrue.
i.e. this was expected:
SELECT * FROM Cases
WHERE created_at BETWEEN the beginning of '2013-05-01' AND the end of '2013-05-01'
but what really happen is this:
SELECT * FROM Cases
WHERE created_at BETWEEN '2013-05-01 00:00:00+00000' AND '2013-05-01 00:00:00+00000'
Which becomes the equivalent of:
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE created_at = '2013-05-01 00:00:00+00000'
The problem is one of perceptions/expectations about BETWEEN which does include BOTH the lower value and the upper values in the range, but does not magically make a date the "beginning of" or "the end of".
BETWEEN should be avoided when filtering by date ranges.
Always use the >= AND < instead
SELECT * FROM Cases
WHERE (created_at >= '20130501' AND created_at < '20130502')
the parentheses are optional here but can be important in more complex queries.

Answer 3

You need to do one of these two options:
Include the time component in your between condition: ... where created_at between '2013-05-01 00:00:00' and '2013-05-01 23:59:59' (not recommended... see the last paragraph)
Use inequalities instead of between. Notice that then you'll have to add one day to the second value: ... where (created_at >= '2013-05-01' and created_at < '2013-05-02')
My personal preference is the second option. Also, Aaron Bertrand has a very clear explanation on why it should be used.

Answer 4

Just use the time stamp as date:
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE date(created_at)='2013-05-01'

Answer 5

I find that the best solution to comparing a datetime field to a date field is the following:
DECLARE #StartDate DATE = '5/1/2013',
#EndDate DATE = '5/1/2013'
SELECT *
FROM cases
WHERE Datediff(day, created_at, #StartDate) <= 0
AND Datediff(day, created_at, #EndDate) >= 0
This is equivalent to an inclusive between statement as it includes both the start and end date as well as those that fall between.

Answer 6

cast(created_at as date)
That will work only in 2008 and newer versions of SQL Server
If you are using older version then use
convert(varchar, created_at, 101)

Answer 7

You can use the date() function which will extract the date from a datetime and give you the result as inclusive date:
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE date(created_at)='2013-05-01' AND '2013-05-01'

Answer 8

your code
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE created_at BETWEEN '2013-05-01' AND '2013-05-01'
how SQL reading it
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE '2013-05-01 22:25:19' BETWEEN '2013-05-01 00:00:00' AND '2013-05-01 00:00:00'
if you don't mention time while comparing DateTime and Date by default hours:minutes:seconds will be zero in your case dates are the same but if you compare time created_at is 22 hours ahead from your end date range
if the above is clear you fix this in many ways like putting ending hours in your end date eg BETWEEN '2013-05-01' AND ''2013-05-01 23:59:59''
OR
simply cast create_at as date like cast(created_at as date) after casting as date '2013-05-01 22:25:19' will be equal to '2013-05-01 00:00:00'

Answer 9

Dyamic date BETWEEN sql query
var startDate = '2019-08-22';
var Enddate = '2019-10-22'
let sql = "SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE created_at BETWEEN '?' AND '?'";
const users = await mysql.query( sql, [startDate, Enddate]);

Answer 10

Even though it is inclusive, as per Aaron Bertrand suggestion (read more about it here)
don't use BETWEEN for date/time ranges.
Apart from other good answers around here, one can also use DATEADD (to add a number of days to a given date) as follows
SELECT * FROM Cases WHERE created_at >= '2013-05-01' AND created_at < DATEADD(day, 1, '2013-05-01')