Question

When saving dates in a Database I have always believed that it is better to save dates with the numbers of the time() function as it is more accurate but I have also seen people saving dates like that 2013-02-01.

Which one is recommended? Or are there different occasions whether you should use one or the other?

Answer 1

I rather save dates as DATE rather than INT because:

• more readable
• it is still date!

anyway it is still your option, consider this,

SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CURDATE()), CURDATE()

will result

UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CURDATE())   CURDATE()
1359676800                  2013-02-01 00:00:00