Text field as date (MySQL)

[Chris Tate-Davies]

Hello. I have a generic table used for many different generic
functions. the fields are mainly varchar's but one of these varchars
contains dates (in the format dd/mm/yyyy) for one reason or another.

My question is, can I perform a query on this table, using date
functions on this varchar field? I.e. search for the latest date?

Thanks, Chris

[Captain Paralytic]

On 2 Aug, 10:41, Chris Tate-Davies <[e-mail]:

Hello. I have a generic table used for many different generic
functions. the fields are mainly varchar's but one of these varchars
contains dates (in the format dd/mm/yyyy) for one reason or another.

My question is, can I perform a query on this table, using date
functions on this varchar field? I.e. search for the latest date?

Thanks, Chris

You can by using the STR_TO_DATE function, but it won't be very
efficient.

[Captain Paralytic]

On 2 Aug, 10:41, Chris Tate-Davies <[e-mail]:

Hello. I have a generic table used for many different generic
functions. the fields are mainly varchar's but one of these varchars
contains dates (in the format dd/mm/yyyy) for one reason or another.

My question is, can I perform a query on this table, using date
functions on this varchar field? I.e. search for the latest date?

Thanks, Chris

BTH, this is NOT a php question.

You should post questions like this in comp.database.mysql
(the name of the group gives you the hint)

[Chris Tate-Davies]

On 2 Aug, 11:01, Captain Paralytic <[e-mail]:

On 2 Aug, 10:41, Chris Tate-Davies <[e-mail]:

Hello. I have a generic table used for many different generic
functions. the fields are mainly varchar's but one of these varchars
contains dates (in the format dd/mm/yyyy) for one reason or another.

My question is, can I perform a query on this table, using date
functions on this varchar field? I.e. search for the latest date?

Thanks, Chris

BTH, this is NOT a php question.

You should post questions like this in comp.database.mysql
(the name of the group gives you the hint)

I am running the query in PHP. I wasn't sure if it would give me more
options.

But thanks for your help.

Chris

[Toby A Inkster]

bill wrote:

Q1: Why the WHERE tempcol LIKE '%/%/%' clause ?
It would seem that it would work without it.
Q2: Why 3 %'s ?

A1: "WHERE tempcol LIKE '%/%/%'" means "where tempcol has the format
something-slash-something-slash-something". In other words, when tempcol
looks a bit like it could be a date.

A2: A date has three components: day, month and year.

--
Toby A Inkster BSc (Hons) ARCS
[Geek of HTML/SQL/Perl/PHP/Python/Apache/Linux]
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