SQL Date Data Types ~ Learn About Web Design

MySQL comes with the following data types for storing a date or a date/time value in the database:

SQL Server comes with the following data types for storing a date or a date/time value in the database:

Note: The date types are chosen for a column when you create a new table in your database!

SQL Working with Dates

You can compare two dates easily if there is no time component involved!

Assume we have the following "Orders" table:

Now we want to select the records with an OrderDate of "2008-11-11" from the table above.

We use the following SELECT statement:

SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE OrderDate='2008-11-11'

The result-set will look like this:

Now, assume that the "Orders" table looks like this (notice the time component in the "OrderDate" column):

If we use the same SELECT statement as above:

SELECT * FROM Orders WHERE OrderDate='2008-11-11'

we will get no result! This is because the query is looking only for dates with no time portion.