How to Display Dates in dd/mm/yyyy Format in PHP MySQL

Problem:

By default, MySQL stores dates in the 'YYYY-MM-DD' format. However, it is often desirable to display dates in the more familiar 'dd/mm/yyyy' format. How can this be achieved using PHP MySQL?

Answers:

Using PHP:

1. Convert the date from the database to a timestamp using strtotime().
2. Format the timestamp in the desired format using date().

Example:

$timestamp = strtotime($date_from_db);
echo date('d/m/Y', $timestamp);

Note that this method is limited to dates within the range of 1970 to 2038 due to timestamp limitations.

Using MySQL:

The date_format() function in MySQL can be used to format dates.

Example:

SELECT date_format(curdate(), '%d/%m/%Y');

This will return the current date in the 'dd/mm/yyyy' format.

Using DateTime Class:

The DateTime class in PHP provides a more flexible approach that avoids the limitations of timestamps.

Example:

$date = new DateTime('2010-03-19');
echo $date->format('d/m/Y');

This will output the date as '19/03/2010'.