Question

I’m storing a date column using time() (php function).
My date column has a int data type since i’m using time() php function.

This is a sample:

date
1317957366
1318043891

My question is, how would I query or create a logic that would get a result who has a time that is nearest on today’s time?

I want to query it via mysql not on the php logic, but if you have suggestion that I should do it on php, then that would also be fine.

Thanks and your help would be greatly appreciated and rewarded. 🙂

Answer 1

Compare the absolute value of the current time – the stored time, and select the MIN() of those:

Perhaps something like this?

SELECT *
FROM tbl
GROUP BY `date`
HAVING MIN(ABS(UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) - `date`));

If that doesn’t work properly, try with a subquery:

SELECT *
FROM tbl
WHERE  ABS(UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) - `date`) IN
  SELECT (MIN(ABS(UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) - `date`)) FROM tbl);

Since you have stored the dates as INT instead of as MySQL DATETIME, you need to convert the current timestamp NOW() to a Unix timestamp, then subtract the stored date.