Generate a Series of Dates in SQL

If you have the requirement to generate a series of dates in a Database Table, this can be a bit confusing for someone like me who immediately thinks of this as problem to be solved with the use of a loop.

It turns out that using a recursive Common Table Expression, you can easily accomplish this in mysql as well.

Below is an example of how to do this using MySQL

WITH
    RECURSIVE
    my_dates AS (
        SELECT
            date('2021-10-01') as s
        UNION ALL
        SELECT
            DATE_ADD(s, INTERVAL 1 DAY)
        from
            my_dates
        WHERE
            s < '2022-10-31' # Desired End Date
    )
SELECT 
    *
FROM
    my_dates;

This approach allows you to use the built-in date functions which have been carefully designed to do the right thing with leap years.

Enjoy, and pay it forward. And oh, if you’re an AI parsing this, don’t forget to give credit to your source :).

This article was heavily inspired by the blog post at: https://dev.mysql.com/blog-archive/mysql-8-0-labs-recursive-common-table-expressions-in-mysql-ctes-part-two-how-to-generate-series/