[RESOLVED] Select Previous Date If Date Not Found

[fr600]

Hi, I'm stuck and where else would I go instead of coming here.

This is a portion of a sql table:

ID    DATE
1     2011-01-05
2     2011-01-05
3     2011-01-17
4     2011-02-21
5     2011-02-21
6     2011-03-14
7     2011-03-25
8     2011-04-01
9     2011-04-06
10    2011-04-18

I need to select any date and if the date does not exit in the database, I need to select one that's available before that.

For example, if I call for 2011-03-10, it doesn't exist in the database. In that case, I'll need it to select 2011-02-21 with ID = 5.

If it's clear what I'm trying to do, anyone willing to help?

Thanks

[bradgrafelman]

Don't check for equality with the date value; look for rows that are 'less than or equal to' the given date and then just take the first row ('LIMIT 1') assuming that you've ordered the rows in descending order.

[fr600]

Thanks for replying. This did the job:

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE date <=  target_date ORDER BY date DESC LIMIT 1