Q.Can we use arithmetic operators (+, -. *, or /) on date functions?
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Start your 14-day free trial to unlock the full solution →Yes, you can use arithmetic operators like + and - on date functions in SQL and many programming languages, but * and / are not directly applicable to dates in standard SQL.
The idea of performing arithmetic on dates is both intuitive and powerful. When you think about it, dates are just numbers — a specific point on a timeline. Adding or subtracting days, months, or years is a natural operation. In SQL, for example, you can write order_date + 7 to get the date one week later, or ship_date - order_date to find the number of days between two dates. This works because the database engine treats dates as numeric values internally (often as a count of days from a fixed starting point).
But not all arithmetic operators make sense for dates. Multiplication and division are the odd ones out. What would it mean to multiply one date by another? Or to divide a date by a number? These operations have no logical interpretation in the context of a calendar. You cannot have "twice as much of a date" or "half a date" in any meaningful way. So while + and - are perfectly valid and widely used, * and / are not supported for date data types in standard SQL.
Some programming languages or libraries allow you to multiply a date by a number to shift it by a certain number of intervals (like days), but this is not standard SQL behaviour. Always check the documentation for your specific database system.
The real power of date arithmetic lies in subtraction. When you subtract one date from another, you get the difference between them — typically expressed in days. This is incredibly useful for calculating ages, durations, or time intervals. For instance, CURRENT_DATE - birth_date gives you the number of days a person has been alive. You can then divide that number by 365.25 to approximate their age in years. …
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