Introduction Sometimes we need to get a formatted date while getting the date from a MySQL database using a SQL query. Fortunately, MySQL has an in-built function called DATE_FORMAT which will help us to acheive the same. Code: DATE_FORMAT(date,format) What is what?? Here are the format specifiers and their description: Code: Specifier Description ============================= %a Abbreviated weekday name (Sun..Sat) %b Abbreviated month name (Jan..Dec) %c Month, numeric (0..12) %D Day of the month with English suffix (0th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, ...) %d Day of the month, numeric (00..31) %e Day of the month, numeric (0..31) %f Microseconds (000000..999999) %H Hour (00..23) %h Hour (01..12) %I Hour (01..12) %i Minutes, numeric (00..59) %j Day of year (001..366) %k Hour (0..23) %l Hour (1..12) %M Month name (January..December) %m Month, numeric (00..12) %p AM or PM %r Time, 12-hour (hh:mm:ss followed by AM or PM) %S Seconds (00..59) %s Seconds (00..59) %T Time, 24-hour (hh:mm:ss) %U Week (00..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week %u Week (00..53), where Monday is the first day of the week %V Week (01..53), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with %X %v Week (01..53), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with %x %W Weekday name (Sunday..Saturday) %w Day of the week (0=Sunday..6=Saturday) %X Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, 4 digits; used with %V %x Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, 4 digits; used with %v %Y Year, numeric, 4 digits %y Year, numeric, 2 digits %% A literal `%'. Example usage: Code: SELECT DATE_FORMAT(doj,'%D of %M, %Y') FROM em_table; // will return 26th of June, 1978