Temporal filters

Temporal filters allow you to filter data based on time intervals, which are used to retrieve data within a specific time range. Temporal filters will enable you to filter data based on a particular time, such as the current time, a specific date, or a range of dates. By using temporal filters, you can ensure that your queries only return data relevant to the period you are interested in, making your data analysis more accurate and efficient.

An valid temporal filter comprises the following components:

• A comparision operator including <, >, <=, >= and BETWEEN
• A time column as the left side
• A time expression with NOW() +/- interval as the right side

Besides, the temporal filter condition must not be part of an OR expression. For example, t > NOW() - INTERVAL '1 hour' OR a > 0 is invalid.

The following query returns all rows from the sales table where the sale_date column plus one week is greater than the current date and time. In other words, it will return all sales records within the past week.

SELECT * 
FROM sales 
WHERE sale_date > NOW() - INTERVAL '1 week';

The temporal filter in this query is sale_date > NOW() - INTERVAL '1 week'. It filters the rows based on the sale_date column and checks if it is within one week of the current time or NOW().

The following query returns all rows from the user_sessions table where the sum of the last_active timestamp and double the session_timeout duration is greater than the current timestamp, indicating active user sessions. This query could be used to clean up old user sessions from the database by deleting any rows that no longer satisfy the condition.

SELECT * 
FROM user_sessions 
WHERE last_active + session_timeout * 2 > NOW();

The temporal filter in this query is in the WHERE clause. It checks whether the timestamp of the last activity plus twice the session timeout is greater than the current time or NOW(). This indicates that the session is still active.