Question

How do I specify to mySQL’s MONTH() function to return ’08’ instead of 8 in this query?

I’d like the sort to work datewise. Currently getting results for date like

2006-9
2007-1
2007-10
2007-11

current query:

SELECT COUNT(*), CONCAT(YEAR(`datetime_added`), '-', MONTH(`datetime_added`)) as date FROM `person` WHERE (email = '' OR email IS NULL) 
GROUP BY date 
ORDER BY date ASC

Answer 1

Use the following instead:

DATE_FORMAT(`datetime_added`,'%Y-%m')

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Explanation:

DATE_FORMAT() function lets you format the date anyway you like using specifiers described in the table below (taken verbatim from documentation). So a format string '%Y-%m' means: "A full year (4 digits), followed by a dash (-), followed by a two-digit month number".

Note that you can specify the language used for day/month names by setting lc_time_names system variable. Extremely useful. Refer to documentation for more details.

Specifier	Description
%a	Abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat)
%b	Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec)
%c	Month, numeric (0..12)
%D	Day of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, …)
%d	Day of the month, numeric (00..31)
%e	Day of the month, numeric (0..31)
%f	Microseconds (000000..999999)
%H	Hour (00..23)
%h	Hour (01..12)
%I	Hour (01..12)
%i	Minutes, numeric (00..59)
%j	Day of year (001..366)
%k	Hour (0..23)
%l	Hour (1..12)
%M	Month name (January..December)
%m	Month, numeric (00..12)
%p	AM or PM
%r	Time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM)
%S	Seconds (00..59)
%s	Seconds (00..59)
%T	Time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss)
%U	Week (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; WEEK() mode 0
%u	Week (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; WEEK() mode 1
%V	Week (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; WEEK() mode 2; used with %X
%v	Week (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; WEEK() mode 3; used with %x
%W	Weekday name (Sunday..Saturday)
%w	Day of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday)
%X	Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %V
%x	Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with %v
%Y	Year, numeric, four digits
%y	Year, numeric (two digits)
%%	A literal % character
%x	x, for any “x” not listed above