How does the BETWEEN operator function in SQL?

The BETWEEN operator in SQL is used to filter results within a specific range in a WHERE clause.

The BETWEEN operator in SQL is a logical operator that is used to select values within a given range. It can be used with any comparable data type such as numeric, date and time, and even text data types. The values can be numbers, text, or dates. The syntax for using the BETWEEN operator is: column_name BETWEEN value1 AND value2. Here, value1 and value2 create a range and the BETWEEN operator selects the values within this range (inclusive).

For example, if you have a table of students and you want to find all students whose ages are between 16 and 18, you would use the BETWEEN operator in the WHERE clause of your SQL statement like this: SELECT * FROM students WHERE age BETWEEN 16 AND 18. This would return all rows from the students table where the age is between 16 and 18, inclusive.

It's important to note that the values that define the range (value1 and value2) are included in the results. So, in the example above, students who are exactly 16 or 18 years old would be included in the results. If you wanted to exclude these ages, you would need to set the range as 17 to 19.

The BETWEEN operator can also be used with text values, in which case it selects records with values alphabetically between the specified range. For example, SELECT * FROM students WHERE name BETWEEN 'A' AND 'M' would return all students whose names start with a letter between A and M.

In addition, the BETWEEN operator can be combined with the NOT operator to select records outside of a specific range. For example, SELECT * FROM students WHERE age NOT BETWEEN 16 AND 18 would return all students whose ages are not between 16 and 18.

In summary, the BETWEEN operator in SQL is a versatile tool that allows you to filter results within a specific range, whether that range is defined by numbers, text, or dates.