Question

Is there a way to insert NOW() in a datetime format – “YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS” in a column of the type “text”.

Currently I am using:

INSERT INTO table (mycol) VALUES (DATE(NOW()))

But this inserts the date in the format “YYYY-MM-DD”.

Answer 1

use DATE_FORMAT()

Something like this,

INSERT INTO tablename (sample) VALUES (DATE_FORMAT(NOW(), '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%S'))

or simple

insert into tablename values(now());

SQLFIDDLE Demo