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Asked: 2026-05-31T08:40:15+00:00

I’m having trouble with MySQL format_date, and don’t understand why. I have the following

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I’m having trouble with MySQL format_date, and don’t understand why. I have the following as part of my code:

date_format(NOW() + INTERVAL 3 DAY, '%Y-%m-%d')

which seems to work fine, except for the fact that regardless of the date I choose, the %d is returning as a single zero (‘0’). If I change %d to %e I can get the correct date, but I’m using this to compare dates, so I need the leading zero for numbers below 10. Is this a database setting, or am I missing something obvious?

Thanks in advance.

UPDATE: I feel like it has to be something in the db, because when I simplify the query to this:

$q = "SELECT date_format(NOW() + INTERVAL 3 DAY, '%Y-%m-%d') as 'today' from content_field_date LIMIT 1";

‘today’ prints out as ‘2012-03-0’

Meanwhile, this:

$q = "SELECT date_format(NOW() + INTERVAL 3 DAY, '%Y-%m-%e') as 'today' from content_field_date LIMIT 1";

correctly returns ‘2012-03-17’

Zeth

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    WHat you describe should not happen. You either found a MySQL bug or you are doing something wrong.

    If you only want to compare dates, you can do that inside MySQL and you probably shouldn’t be using DATE_FORMAT() at all. You can use this to get a date:

    DATE(NOW() + INTERVAL 3 DAY)

    or:

    (CURDATE() + INTERVAL 3 DAY)
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