Question

I have a table in a MySQL database with a field named ‘Date’, the problem is the date is in the format DD-MM-YYYY so I cannot upload it to MySQL as a DATE type field. Instead the field type is a string. With this in mind, how can I write query that will give this effect –

SELECT * FROM `table` 
WHERE  (date_field BETWEEN '2010-01-30' AND '2010-09-29')

keeping in mind ‘date_field’ is not of DATE type, but string.

Answer 1

SELECT * FROM `table` 
WHERE str_to_date(date_field, '%d-%m-%Y') BETWEEN '2010-01-30' AND '2010-09-29'

SQLFiddle example

Edit

You can also do this:

SELECT * FROM `table` 
WHERE cast(substring(date_field, 7, 4) as unsigned) * 10000 + cast(substring(date_field, 4, 2) as unsigned) * 100 + cast(substring(date_field', 1, 2) as unsigned)
BETWEEN 20100130 AND 20100929