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Asked: 2026-06-02T21:51:29+00:00

I have inherited a MySQL database which (for historical reasons) contains a field which

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I have inherited a MySQL database which (for historical reasons) contains a field which stores a date as number of days since 1900-01-01. I want to be able to select a date_format() version of this date but can’t figure a way of doing so.
Is there a way of manipulating the contents of the column such that I can pass the manipulated value to date_format() so it is recognised as a valid date?
I realise there is a solution to this which involves doing one query, then manipulating the field (in PHP) then passing back in as a secondary query – but I need this to be a single query solution.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Is the MySql FROM_DAYS() function what you’re looking for – see here for docs?

    However, depending on your database design and use case, you might consider adding a column with the date (result of FROM_DAYS()), so that you can do queries against that column. When you have to apply a function to a column before being able to use this in a query, it should ring warning bells that these queries could be quite inefficient to run.

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