BETWEEN clause versus <= AND >=

Question

Is there a performance difference between using a BETWEEN clause or using <= AND >= comparisons?

i.e. these two queries:

SELECT *  
  FROM table           


        

Answer 1

It may be worth considering the SQL standard for this (although this might not correspond to all implementations, even if it should):

Format

 ::=
   [ NOT ] BETWEEN
     AND 

Syntax Rules

[...]

6) "X BETWEEN Y AND Z" is equivalent to "X>=Y AND X<=Z".

Having said so, there is no difference in behaviour, although for complex X, there may be a difference in parsing time, as mentioned by Benoit here

Found in http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~shadow/sql/sql1992.txt