Selecting data between certain hours
I need to select data between an hours range. For example, I need to extract data between 4AM yesterday and 4AM...
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today. Which date function, or combination, do I need to use? This is in SQL Server.
Thanks for mentioning the database system you use. It does make a difference, particularly when dealing with dates and times.
The first thing we need to do is find a way to represent "4AM today." In Microsoft SQL Server, the GETDATE() function returns the current date and time, so let's first strip off the current time:
convert(char(10),getdate(),120)
See the Microsoft documentation for CAST and CONVERT. Style 120 is the yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss format, and converting to char(10) truncates the time off the end.
Now all we have to do is append 04:00:00 to the end of the date string, and CAST it back to datetime:
cast(convert(char(10),getdate(),120) + ' 04:00:00' as datetime)
We can get "4AM yesterday" simply by subtracting one day from "4AM today" using the DATEADD function. Thus your desired range will be:
select something from yourtable where somedate between dateadd(day,-1, cast(convert(char(10),getdate(),120) + ' 04:00:00' as datetime) ) and cast(convert(char(10),getdate(),120) + ' 04:00:00' as datetime)
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