Question

I have some office records. Database is already created and filled with lots of data. I have to create search functionality on it. But the problem is database have date field which is in var char form and is in the form “DD-MM-YYYY” eg :”18-11-2011″
I want to convert the date column in date format without losing this data. I tried doing it on test table and everything turned to zero. eg: 0000-00-00

What can be done for the same ?

Answer 1

To expand on flesk’s answer add a new column

ALTER TABLE foo ADD newdate DATE;

Update the table to fill this new column (like flesk did)

UPDATE foo SET newdate=str_to_date(olddate, '%d-%m-%Y');

Then you can even test if the conversion is correct.

SELECT * FROM foo WHERE olddate  <> DATE_FORMAT(newdate, '%d-%m-%Y');

Then you can either drop old column and rename new one. Or just leave it as it is.