Hello,

I am just starting to learn PHP/MySQL and I need to store a date in MySQL for an application that I am writing.

I am wondering what the best way of doing this would be, I thought about using the PHP date(); function and storing it in a varchar field but surely there is a better way? I am using PEAR DB if that makes any difference. :)


Cheers,
Steve. :lovewht:

I'd use a date type

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/date-and-time-types.html

You can't really go wrong with unix timestamps. There are plenty of very useful php functions that work with them. date() in particular.

I always use datetime - if you are inserting the current time then you can use the mysql NOW() function on the insert, saves a lot of bother creating it through php.

I think U can make the default of a column now() so it doesn't have to be put in the insert().
And if U can't someone will correct me.

I always use datetime - if you are inserting the current time then you can use the mysql NOW() function on the insert, saves a lot of bother creating it through php.

Be sure that you are happy with the timezone set for MySQL (which will either be your host's local timezone of GMT)

Otherwise: use php, where you can better control the timezone used, to generate the dates and insert them. You can use the PHP date formatting strings to put them into a format that will be taken as a date without ambiguity (something like "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM" should do it)