How to populate a table with a range of dates?

Question

I need a MySQL table to hold ALL DATES between 2011-01-01 and 2011-12-31. I have created a table with one column names \"_date\", type DATE.

With what query can I po

Answer 1

I did not want my SQL query to require external dependencies (needing to have a calendar table, procedure for populating a temporary table with dates, etc.) The original idea for this query came from http://jeffgarretson.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/generating-a-range-of-dates-in-mysql/ which I had slightly optimized for clarity and ease of use.

SELECT (CURDATE() - INTERVAL c.number DAY) AS date
FROM (SELECT singles + tens + hundreds number FROM 
( SELECT 0 singles
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
) singles JOIN 
(SELECT 0 tens
UNION ALL SELECT  10 UNION ALL SELECT  20 UNION ALL SELECT  30
UNION ALL SELECT  40 UNION ALL SELECT  50 UNION ALL SELECT  60
UNION ALL SELECT  70 UNION ALL SELECT  80 UNION ALL SELECT  90
) tens  JOIN 
(SELECT 0 hundreds
UNION ALL SELECT  100 UNION ALL SELECT  200 UNION ALL SELECT  300
UNION ALL SELECT  400 UNION ALL SELECT  500 UNION ALL SELECT  600
UNION ALL SELECT  700 UNION ALL SELECT  800 UNION ALL SELECT  900
) hundreds
ORDER BY number DESC) c  
WHERE c.number BETWEEN 0 and 364

It is simple to optimize and scale this table for other uses. You can easily get rid of the tens and hundreds tables if you only need one week of data.

If you need a larger set of numbers, it is easy to add a thousands table. You only need to copy and paste the table with hundreds and add a zero to 9 numbers.