Question

I am working from 2 databases and I need to find records which matches the closest times. Both fields are datetime().

So in essence:

table1.time = 2012-06-07 15:30:00
table2.time = 2012-06-07 15:30:01
table2.time = 2012-06-07 15:30:02
table2.time = 2012-06-07 15:30:03

NOTE: The table I am querying (table2) is a mssql table, and table1.time is a datetime() time. I need to find in table2 the row which closest matches table1.time, but I have no guarnatee that it would be an exact match, so I need the closest. I only need to return 1 result.

I tried the SQL below based on an example from a previous stackoverflow query but it failed to work.

Table1 is a mysql database where table2 is mssql and the query happens on table2 (mssql)

  try {
            $sql = "
                SELECT     
                    PCO_AGENT.NAME, 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.LOGIN AS LOGINID, 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.PHONE AS CALLERID, 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.STATION AS EXTEN, 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.TALKTIME AS CALLLENGTH, 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.CHANNELRECORDID AS RECORDINGID, 
                    PCO_SOFTPHONECALLLOG.RDATE, 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.RDATE AS INBOUNDDATE
                FROM         
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG 
                INNER JOIN
                      PCO_LOGINAGENT ON PCO_INBOUNDLOG.LOGIN = PCO_LOGINAGENT.LOGIN 
                INNER JOIN
                      PCO_SOFTPHONECALLLOG ON PCO_INBOUNDLOG.ID = PCO_SOFTPHONECALLLOG.CONTACTID 
                INNER JOIN
                      PCO_AGENT ON PCO_LOGINAGENT.AGENTID = PCO_AGENT.ID
                WHERE 
                    PCO_INBOUNDLOG.STATION = :extension
                AND ABS(DATEDIFF(:start,PCO_SOFTPHONECALLLOG.RDATE))
            ";
            $arr = array(":extension" => $array['extension'], ":start" => $array['start']);
            $query = $this->mssql->prepare($sql);
            $query->execute($arr);
            $row = $query->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);
            $this->pre($row);
        }

I am getting the following error at the moment:

SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 174 General SQL Server error: Check messages from the SQL Server [174] (severity 15) [(null)]SQLSTATE[HY000]: General error: 174 General SQL Server error: Check messages from the SQL Server [174] (severity 15) [(null)]

Answer 1

Found a shorter version:

 SELECT * FROM `table` WHERE `date` < '$var' ORDER BY date LIMIT 1;