Question

I would like to run a query like

select ... as days where `date` is between '2010-01-20' and '2010-01-24'

And return data like:

days
----------
2010-01-20
2010-01-21
2010-01-22
2010-01-23
2010-01-24

Answer 1

This solution uses no loops, procedures, or temp tables. The subquery generates dates for the last 10,000 days, and could be extended to go as far back or forward as you wish.

select a.Date 
from (
    select curdate() - INTERVAL (a.a + (10 * b.a) + (100 * c.a) + (1000 * d.a) ) DAY as Date
    from (select 0 as a union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) as a
    cross join (select 0 as a union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) as b
    cross join (select 0 as a union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) as c
    cross join (select 0 as a union all select 1 union all select 2 union all select 3 union all select 4 union all select 5 union all select 6 union all select 7 union all select 8 union all select 9) as d
) a
where a.Date between '2010-01-20' and '2010-01-24' 

Output:

Date
----------
2010-01-24
2010-01-23
2010-01-22
2010-01-21
2010-01-20

Notes on Performance

Testing it out here, the performance is surprisingly good: the above query takes 0.0009 sec.

If we extend the subquery to generate approx. 100,000 numbers (and thus about 274 years worth of dates), it runs in 0.0458 sec.

Incidentally, this is a very portable technique that works with most databases with minor adjustments.

SQL Fiddle example returning 1,000 days