MySQL date and time functions, Part 2

The DATE_FORMAT function is a powerful function that allows you to return a specified date in a number of different ways. For example, those who use American time (MM-DD-YYYY, as you can see at the beginning of this article) instead of the standard International time, this function provides a painless way to convert. Below is a list of format specifiers:

mysql> SELECT DATE_FORMAT('2003-07-14','%b %d,%Y');
+--------------------------------------+
| DATE_FORMAT('2003-07-14','%b %d,%Y') |
+--------------------------------------+
| Jul 14,2003                          |
+--------------------------------------+

mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP();
+------------------+
| UNIX_TIMESTAMP() |
+------------------+
|       1050267998 |
+------------------+

mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP('2003-07-14');
+------------------------------+
| UNIX_TIMESTAMP('2003-07-14') |
+------------------------------+
|                   1058133600 |
+------------------------------+

Below is a reference for the MySQL date and time functions. Once you have mastered what we've covered so far, none of the other functions will present anything tricky, but you should give the list a read through - you never know when you'll need them.