mySql Changing date format for table

ShoulderChip · 10-02-2009 10:12am #1

Hello In my currentg mysql databse the date fields are stored in the format
yyyy-mm-dd
is it possible to have them in they typical european format of dd-mm-yyyy in a table?

thanks for any help.

seamus · 10-02-2009 10:19am

Depends on the data type.

If it's a date, datetime or timestamp, then it's stored in the YYYY-MM-DD format and you can't change that.

You can reformat it though when you're retrieving it, e.g.

SELECT DATE_FORMAT('%d-%m-%Y', date_column) FROM TABLE....

If it's a varchar/char (as I've seen people store dates before

), then you can do whatever the hell you like.

All you need to do is reformat it when

ShoulderChip · 10-02-2009 2:41pm

Ah cool, yeah it is stored as date alright,
is it possible to combine the date format with a select all statement?

Liam Byrne · 10-02-2009 3:35pm

They're stored that way so that you can easily do date calculations - e.g

2005-10-15 is less than 2009-10-01; the other way around it wouldn't be

is it possible to combine the date format with a select all statement

SELECT *, DATE_FORMAT('%d-%m-%Y', date_column) AS formatted_date FROM table....

date_column will give you the date, for calculations, if required
formatted_date will give you the date in the format that you're looking for

mySql Changing date format for table

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