How is the “to_date” function used in MySQL?

1 year ago
Liam
1 minute

In MySQL, the TO_DATE() function is used to convert a string value into a date type. The syntax is as follows:

TO_DATE(str, format)

In which, str is the string to be converted, and format is the format of the date.

The function TO_DATE() works as follows:

  1. Firstly, it parses the str string according to the format parameter.
  2. Then, it returns the parsed date portion as a value of date type.

Here is an example of using the TO_DATE() function.

SELECT TO_DATE('2021-07-15', '%Y-%m-%d');

This example converts the string ‘2021-07-15’ into a date type and returns a date value. In this case, ‘%Y-%m-%d’ is the format parameter that tells MySQL how to parse the string, specifying the pattern as year-month-day.

Please note that the TO_DATE() function does not exist in MySQL; it is a function in the Oracle database. In MySQL, you can use the STR_TO_DATE() function to achieve similar functionality.

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