Populating a list of dates without a defined end date - SQL server - sql-server

Question

I have a list of accounts and their cost which changes every few days.
In this list I only have the start date every time the cost updates to a new one, but no column for the end date.
Meaning, I need to populate a list of dates when the end date for a specific account and cost, should be deduced as the start date of the same account with a new cost.
More or less like that:
Account start date cost
one 1/1/2016 100$
two 1/1/2016 150$
one 4/1/2016 200$
two 3/1/2016 200$
And the result I need would be:
Account date cost
one 1/1/2016 100$
one 2/1/2016 100$
one 3/1/2016 100$
one 4/1/2016 200$
two 1/1/2016 150$
two 2/1/2016 150$
two 3/1/2016 200$
For example, if the cost changed in the middle of the month, than the sample data will only hold two records (one per each unique combination of account-start date-cost), while the results will hold 30 records with the cost for each and every day of the month (15 for the first cost and 15 for the second one). The costs are a given, and no need to calculate them (inserted manually).
Note the result contains more records because the sample data shows only a start date and an updated cost for that account, as of that date. While the results show the cost for every day of the month.
Any ideas?

Answer 1

Solution is a bit long.
I added an extra date for test purposes:
DECLARE #t table(account varchar(10), startdate date, cost int)
INSERT #t
values
('one','1/1/2016',100),('two','1/1/2016',150),
('one','1/4/2016',200),('two','1/3/2016',200),
('two','1/6/2016',500) -- extra row
;WITH CTE as
( SELECT
row_number() over (partition by account order by startdate) rn,
*
FROM #t
),N(N)AS
(
SELECT 1 FROM(VALUES(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1),(1))M(N)
),
tally(N) AS -- tally is limited to 1000 days
(
SELECT ROW_NUMBER()OVER(ORDER BY N.N) - 1 FROM N,N a,N b
),GROUPED as
(
SELECT
cte.account, cte.startdate, cte.cost, cte2.cost cost2, cte2.startdate enddate
FROM CTE
JOIN CTE CTE2
ON CTE.account = CTE2.account
and CTE.rn = CTE2.rn - 1
)
-- used DISTINCT to avoid overlapping dates
SELECT DISTINCT
CASE WHEN datediff(d, startdate,enddate) = N THEN cost2 ELSE cost END cost,
dateadd(d, N, startdate) startdate,
account
FROM grouped
JOIN tally
ON datediff(d, startdate,enddate) >= N
Result:
cost startdate account
100 2016-01-01 one
100 2016-01-02 one
100 2016-01-03 one
150 2016-01-01 two
150 2016-01-02 two
200 2016-01-03 two
200 2016-01-04 one
200 2016-01-04 two
200 2016-01-05 two
500 2016-01-06 two

Answer 2

Thank you #t-clausen.dk!
It didn't solve the problem completely, but did direct me in the correct way.
Eventually I used the LEAD function to generate an end date for every cost per account, and then I was able to populate a list of dates based on that idea.
Here's how I generate the end dates:
DECLARE #t table(account varchar(10), startdate date, cost int)
INSERT #t
values
('one','1/1/2016',100),('two','1/1/2016',150),
('one','1/4/2016',200),('two','1/3/2016',200),
('two','1/6/2016',500)
select account
,[startdate]
,DATEADD(DAY, -1, LEAD([Startdate], 1,'2100-01-01') OVER (PARTITION BY account ORDER BY [Startdate] ASC)) AS enddate
,cost
from #t
It returned the expected result:
account startdate enddate cost
one 2016-01-01 2016-01-03 100
one 2016-01-04 2099-12-31 200
two 2016-01-01 2016-01-02 150
two 2016-01-03 2016-01-05 200
two 2016-01-06 2099-12-31 500
Please note that I set the end date of current costs to be some date in the far future which means (for me) that they are currently active.