DATETIME type in MySQL database

[boylesg]

If you use this type for one of the columns in a table, what exactly do you get back for that column when you do a query.

 

Is it a string of the format yyyy/mm/dd....... or does the column data get mapped into some sort of data structure that you then interrogate in php code?

 

Also what sort of collation, if any, should you have afor a date column? ascii_bin?

Edited January 30, 2014 by Greg Boyles

[Ingolme]

SQL queries always return strings, Even number data types. PHP has to cast them itself. With numbers you usually don't have to worry about the casting, but with dates you have to parse the string. I think the strtotime() function will work fine.

 

Personally, I store dates as a UNIX timestamp in an INT field in MySQL.