Question

I am trying to modify my existing code that returns from DB the rows that are between a specific date and time. It does the job right, but I would like to add a feature as described below.

This is an example of my DB

           start                  end
1st row    2012-07-24 18:00:00    2012-07-28 17:00:00
2nd row    2012-07-25 19:00:00    2012-07-30 19:00:00
3rd row    2012-07-25 22:00:00    2012-07-28 13:00:00
4th row    2012-07-25 23:40:00    2012-07-27 18:00:00
...
...
...

When my input is 2012-07-25 23:00:00 BETWEEN start AND end ORDER by start DESC

So the results are,

3rd row
2nd row
1st row

Until here everything is great. However, I want to list any rows that are going to begin in the next 2 hours at the top of the list.
This is row number 4.

I tried to do it using

 ABS(TIMESTAMPDIFF( HOUR , `start`, :time )) < 2

unfortunately, I can’t find the solution.

Below is my code since now, any help is appreciated. ( I use 3 variables, selected, city and type)

// Store where clauses and values in arrays
$values = $where = array();

if (!empty($selected)) { // 
    $where[] = ':selected BETWEEN `start` AND `end`';
    $values[':selected'] = $selected;
}

if (!empty($city)) { // 
    $where[] = '`city` = :city';
    $values[':city'] = $city;
}

if (!empty($type)) { // 
$where[] = '`type` = :type';
$values[':type'] = $type;
}

// Build query
$question = 'SELECT * FROM `events`';
if (!empty($where)) {
    $question .= ' WHERE '.implode(' AND ', $where);
    $question .= ' ORDER BY `start` DESC';
}

$query = $db->prepare($question);

$query->execute($values);

Answer 1

I didn’t check the order of your arguments, so I got the condition backwards. However, my initial statement still stands. Basically, the simplest answer is to adjust your starting time, like so:

SELECT * 
FROM TMP
WHERE startedAt < DATE_ADD(TIMESTAMP('2012-07-25 23:00:00'), INTERVAL 2 HOUR)
AND endedBy >= TIMESTAMP('2012-07-25 23:00:00')
ORDER BY startedAt DESC

And have a working example.