How can I generate a temporary table filled with dates in SQL Server 2000?

Question

I need to make a temporary table that holds of range of dates, as well as a couple of columns that hold placeholder values (0) for future use. The dates I need are the firs

Answer 1

For SQL Server 2000, this stackoverflow post looks promising for a way to temporarily generate dates calculated off of a start and end date. It's not exactly the same but quite similar. This post has a very in-depth answer on truncating dates, if needed.

In case anyone stumbles on this question and is working in PostgreSQL instead of SQL Server 2000, here is how you might do it there...

PostgreSQL has a nifty series generating function. For your example, you could use this series of all days instead of generating an entire calendar table, and then do groupings and matchups from there.

SELECT current_date + s.a AS dates FROM generate_series(0,14,7) AS s(a);
   dates
------------
 2004-02-05
 2004-02-12
 2004-02-19
(3 rows)

SELECT * FROM generate_series('2008-03-01 00:00'::timestamp,
                              '2008-03-04 12:00', '10 hours');
   generate_series   
---------------------
 2008-03-01 00:00:00
 2008-03-01 10:00:00
 2008-03-01 20:00:00
 2008-03-02 06:00:00
 2008-03-02 16:00:00
 2008-03-03 02:00:00
 2008-03-03 12:00:00
 2008-03-03 22:00:00
 2008-03-04 08:00:00
(9 rows)

I would also look into date_trunc from PostgreSQL using 'month' for the truncator field to maybe refactor your original query to easily match with a date_trunc version of the calendar series.