Is it possible to use the SQL DATEADD function but exclude dates from a table in the calculation? - sql-server

Question

Is it possible to use the DATEADD function but exclude dates from a table?
We already have a table with all dates we need to exclude. Basically, I need to add number of days to a date but exclude dates within a table.
Example: Add 5 days to 01/08/2021. Dates 03/08/2021 and 04/08/2021 exist in the exclusion table. So, resultant date should be: 08/08/2021.
Thank you

Answer 1

A bit of a "wonky" solution, but it works. Firstly we use a tally to create a Calendar table of dates, that exclude your dates in the table, then we get the nth row, where n is the number of days to add:
DECLARE #DaysToAdd int = 5,
#StartDate date = '20210801';
WITH N AS(
SELECT N
FROM (VALUES(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL),(NULL))N(N)),
Tally AS(
SELECT 0 AS I
UNION ALL
SELECT ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY (SELECT NULL)) AS I
FROM N N1, N N2, N N3), --Up to 1,000
Calendar AS(
SELECT DATEADD(DAY,T.I, #StartDate) AS D,
ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY T.I) AS I
FROM Tally T
WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT 1
FROM dbo.DatesTable DT
WHERE DT.YourDate = DATEADD(DAY,T.I, #StartDate)))
SELECT D
FROM Calendar
WHERE I = #DaysToAdd+1;

Answer 2

A best solution is probably a calendar table.
But if you're willing to traverse through every date, then a recursive CTE can work. It would require tracking the total iterations and another column to substract if any traversed date was in the table. The exit condition uses the total difference.
An example dataset would be:
CREATE TABLE mytable(mydate date); INSERT INTO mytable VALUES ('20210803'), ('20210804');
And an example function run in it's own batch:
ALTER FUNCTION dbo.fn_getDays (#mydate date, #daysadd int)
RETURNS date
AS
BEGIN
DECLARE #newdate date;
WITH CTE(num, diff, mydate) AS (
SELECT 0 AS [num]
,0 AS [diff]
,DATEADD(DAY, 0, #mydate) [mydate]
UNION ALL
SELECT num + 1 AS [num]
,CTE.diff +
CASE WHEN DATEADD(DAY, num+1, #mydate) IN (SELECT mydate FROM mytable)
THEN 0 ELSE 1 END
AS [diff]
,DATEADD(DAY, num+1, #mydate) [mydate]
FROM CTE
WHERE (CTE.diff +
CASE WHEN DATEADD(DAY, num+1, #mydate) IN (SELECT mydate FROM mytable)
THEN 0 ELSE 1 END) <= #daysadd
)
SELECT #newdate = (SELECT MAX(mydate) AS [mydate] FROM CTE);
RETURN #newdate;
END
Running the function:
SELECT dbo.fn_getDays('20210801', 5)
Produces output, which is the MAX(mydate) from the function:
----------
2021-08-08
For reference the MAX(mydate) is taken from this dataset:
n diff mydate
----------- ----------- ----------
0 0 2021-08-01
1 1 2021-08-02
2 1 2021-08-03
3 1 2021-08-04
4 2 2021-08-05
5 3 2021-08-06
6 4 2021-08-07
7 5 2021-08-08

Answer 3

You can use the IN clause.
To perform the test, I used a W3Schools Test DB
SELECT DATE_ADD(BirthDate, INTERVAL 10 DAY) FROM Employees WHERE FirstName NOT IN (Select FirstName FROM Employees WHERE FirstName LIKE 'N%')
This query shows all the birth dates + 10 days except for the only employee with name starting with N (Nancy)