Question

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Difference in SQL Between operator and “>=” & “<=” operator

I see that my developer is using this construction for selecting data of selected date interval:

SELECT ... WHERE `date` >= '2011-11-28' AND `date` <= '2011-12-04'

I recommend him to use BETWEEN operator like this one:

SELECT ... WHERE date BETWEEN '2011-11-28' AND '2011-12-04'

Which solution is better and what are arguments for it?

Answer 1

AFAIK, there is no difference between this approaches in terms of execution efficiency. But BETWEEN X AND Y seems to be more readable and nice, so I’d like to use this construction instead of date >= '2011-11-28' AND date <= '2011-12-04' too.

BUT: If for example you are write simple datetime filter in your app, you need an opportunity to pick only first or only second date – this is the case where date >= '2011-11-28' AND date <= '2011-12-04' should be used (we can omit date >= ‘2011-11-28’ or omit date <= ‘2011-12-04’ in our query builder without problems).