Categories:: Date & time functions

PREVIOUS_DAY¶

Returns the date of the first specified day of week (DOW) that occurs before the input date.

See also:: LAST_DAY , NEXT_DAY

Syntax¶

PREVIOUS_DAY( <date_or_timetamp_expr> , <dow> )

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Arguments¶

date_or_timestamp_expr: A date or a timestamp, or an expression that can be evaluated to a date or a timestamp.

dow_string

Specifies the day of week used to calculate the date for the previous day. The value can be a string literal or an expression that returns a string. The string must start with the first two characters (case-insensitive) of the day name:

su (Sunday)

mo (Monday)

tu (Tuesday)

we (Wednesday)

th (Thursday)

fr (Friday)

sa (Saturday)

Any leading spaces and trailing characters, including spaces, in the string are ignored.

Returns¶

This function returns a value of type DATE, even if date_or_timetamp_expr is a timestamp.

Examples¶

Return the date of the previous Friday that occurred before the current date:

SELECT CURRENT_DATE() AS "Today's Date",
       PREVIOUS_DAY("Today's Date", 'Friday') AS "Previous Friday";

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+--------------+-----------------+
| Today's Date | Previous Friday |
|--------------+-----------------|
| 2025-05-06   | 2025-05-02      |
+--------------+-----------------+

Your output will be different because the example uses the CURRENT_DATE function.