Question

In SQL Server 2005 I have a table with data that looks something like this:

WTN------------Date  
555-111-1212  2009-01-01  
555-111-1212  2009-01-02  
555-111-1212  2009-01-03  
555-111-1212  2009-01-15  
555-111-1212  2009-01-16  
212-999-5555  2009-01-01  
212-999-5555  2009-01-10  
212-999-5555  2009-01-11 

From this I would like to extract WTN, Min(Date), Max(Date) the twist is I would like to also break whenever there is a gap in the dates, so from the above data, my results should look like:

WTN------------ MinDate---- MaxDate  
555-111-1212   2009-01-01  2009-01-03  
555-111-1212   2009-01-15  2009-01-16  
212-999-5555   2009-01-01  2009-01-01  
212-999-5555   2009-01-10  2009-01-11  

1. How can I do this in a SQL Select/ Group By?
2. Can this be done without a table or list enumerating the values I want to identify gaps in (Dates here)?

Answer 1

Why is everyone so dead set against using a table for this kind of thing? A table of numbers or a calendar table takes up such little space and is probably in memory if referenced enough anyway. You can also derive a numbers table pretty easily on the fly using ROW_NUMBER(). Using a numbers table can help with the understanding of the query. But here is a not-so-straightforward example, a trick I picked up from Plamen Ratchev a while back, hope it helps.

DECLARE @wtns TABLE
(
    WTN    CHAR(12),
    [Date] SMALLDATETIME
);

INSERT @wtns(WTN, [Date])
          SELECT '555-111-1212','2009-01-01'
UNION ALL SELECT '555-111-1212','2009-01-02'
UNION ALL SELECT '555-111-1212','2009-01-03'
UNION ALL SELECT '555-111-1212','2009-01-15'
UNION ALL SELECT '555-111-1212','2009-01-16'
UNION ALL SELECT '212-999-5555','2009-01-01'
UNION ALL SELECT '212-999-5555','2009-01-10' 
UNION ALL SELECT '212-999-5555','2009-01-11';

WITH x AS
(
    SELECT
        [Date],
        wtn,
        part = DATEDIFF(DAY, 0, [Date]) 
        + DENSE_RANK() OVER
        (
            PARTITION BY wtn
            ORDER BY [Date] DESC
        )
    FROM @wtns
)
SELECT 
    WTN, 
    MinDate = MIN([Date]),
    MaxDate = MAX([Date])
FROM
    x
GROUP BY 
    part,
    WTN
ORDER BY
    WTN DESC,
    MaxDate;