Parse Date from MM/DD/YYYY to a format MYSQL can work with

Question

Currently working with a MLS data dump in which all their dates are formatted in MM/DD/YYYY , Trying to get the min/max age

        MIN( DateDiff( NOW(), idx_common.list_date ))) AS listage_min,
        MAX( DateDiff( NOW(), idx_common.list_date ))) AS listage_max

Obviously this does not work because idx_common.list_date is in said format.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

Use str_to_date to convert idx_common.list_date.

MIN( DateDiff( NOW(), str_to_date(idx_common.list_date,'%m/%d/%Y') ))) AS listage_min,
MAX( DateDiff( NOW(), str_to_date(idx_common.list_date,'%m/%d/%Y') ))) AS listage_max

Answer 2

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_str-to-date contains the answer you seek.

However - please consider using real DATETIME columns instead of strings in your database, if at all possible.

Answer 3

use java or c# or something to split the string of the date by the / and reorder the date into the format expected by mysql before you run the mysql query.