oracle between clause inclusive format HH24:MI - sql

Question

My query looks something like:
select *
from mytable
where date_field between to_date(#from#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
and to_date(#to#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
As an example:
if from = 2012/07/18 00:00 and
to = 2012/07/18 00:09
will this include records with timestamp 2012/07/18 00:09:01 to 2012/07/18 00:09:59?
or should I change the statement to:
select *
from mytable
where date_field >= to_date(#from#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
< to_date(#to#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
here substituting from : 2012/07/18 00:00 & to: 2012/07/18 00:10 should give me all records with timestamp between midnight & 9M59S past midnight, which is what I want.

Answer 1

The between clause accepts both the interval bounds.
I suggest the second option to you
select *
from mytable
where date_field >= to_date(#from#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
< to_date(#to#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
You may find this article interesting.

Answer 2

The date conversion is going to convert the values into dates, which contain all date elements. You have not specified seconds in the strings, so these will become 0.
In other words, the range ":01" - ":59" is not included.
Since you are working with strings and the strings have date elements in the proper order for comparison, why not do string compares instead:
where to_char(datefield, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI') between #from# and #to#
I think this does exactly what you want, without fiddling around with date arithmetic.
You can also change the statement as you propose, by incrementing the #to# column and using "<" instead of between.

Answer 3

You could do something like this:
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE date_field between to_date(#from#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
AND to_date(#to#||':59', 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI:SS')

Answer 4

Ignoring the date portion of the DATE elements, since both 00:09:01 and 00:09:59 come after your "to" time of 00:09:00, no, this query will not include those records.
If you want to include those records, you will need to extend your "to" time to 00:10:00 or TRUNC your records's timestamps to the nearest minute.
Edit:
If your from and to are only accurate to the minute, I'd do this:
SELECT *
FROM mytable
WHERE date_field >= to_date(#from#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI')
AND date_field < to_date(#to#, 'YYYY/MM/DD HH24:MI') + 1/24/60/60 /* 1 minute */
And make sure you use bind variable for from and to. Is this ColdFusion? If so, use cfqueryparam.