MySQL: Validate for date range within rate range (laravel optional) - php

Question

Hey guys (and girlies)
Can someone point out to validate / search for a date range within a date range? I am using Laravel PHP but raw SQL will be perfect as well.
I want to validate if a date range exists, within a date range. Basically I want a solid validation to avoid overlapping date ranges.
Example (and the concept I have at the moment) (laravel syntax)
->where('start_date','>=',$myrange_start)
->where('start_date','<=',$myrange_end)
Which will validate for for a start date in the database between the date range
and
->where('start_end','>=',$myrange_start)
->where('start_end','<=',$myrange_end)
Which will validate for for an end date in the database between the date range
And which has also kind of worked for me is
->whereRaw('? between start_date and end_date', [$today])
however, what I want to achieve is to say something like
->whereRaw('? between start_date and end_date', [$myrange_start, $myrange_end])
so see if there are date ranges which
a) start: on start, between start and end, on end
b) start: on end
c) end: on start, between start and en, on end
d) start BEFORE start date and ends AFTER ends date
e) start AFTER start date and ends BEFORE end date
Is this possible?

Answer 1

This is the overlapping range problem, and to quote this canonical SO answer, the WHERE clause should be something like:
WHERE new_start < existing_end
AND new_end > existing_start;
Translating this to Laravel code:
->where('start_date', '<', $myrange_end)
->where('start_end', '>', $myrange_start)
This would return true if there is an overlap between the two ranges. If instead you want to find out if there isn't an overlap, then we can try:
->where('start_date', '>=', $myrange_end)
->orWhere('start_end', '<=', $myrange_start)

Answer 2

Laravel official docs laravel docs whereBetween
ModelName::whereBetween('date_field', [ $start_Date, $end_date ])->get();

Answer 3

Okay, think this should then work. you guys can comment
where(function ($q) use ($start, $end) {
$q->where('start_date', '>=', $start)
->where('start_date', '<=', $end);
})
->orWhere(function ($q) use ($start, $end) {
$q->where('end_date', '>=', $start)
->where('end_date', '<=', $end);
})
->orWhere(function ($q) use ($start, $end) {
$q->where('start_date', '<', $start)
->where('end_date', '>', $end);
});