How to build an SQL query to display one result from past dates, and several from future ones?

Question

MySQL

Hey! There is a table, in it material ID and TIMESTAMP. You need to make a query like this: find the first nearest date from past dates, and all the rest from future ones.

Answer 1

SELECT `date`
FROM `foo`
WHERE `id` >= (
  SELECT `id`
  FROM `foo`
  WHERE `date` < now()
  ORDER BY `id` DESC
  LIMIT 1
)

This is of course assuming the dates are consecutive. If not, then you can, for example, separately select the last past one and separately all future ones and combine them with a union.

Answer 2

SELECT ...
  FROM `table` 
  WHERE `date` < NOW()
  ORDER BY `date` DESC
  LIMIT 1
UNION SELECT ...
  FROM `table` 
  WHERE `date` >= NOW()