Today I am going to show you how to convert data returned from a MySQL database that was store as a date data type into a user friendly format. To do this you can take two different approaches. One way to do it is to use the function date_format() function in your query. The other way to to modify the date after it is returned.

Since you are trying to convert the date I am assuming you can connect to a database, runa query, and display the results. If not check out some of our older tutorials:

How to Access a MySQL Database Using PHP

Creating a Form that will Search a MySQL Database

You can use the function in the query to convert the date or after the results are returned.

Using date_format()

Here is an example of how to call the function in a query:

$query = mysql_query("select * date_format(date, '%b %d') as newdate from `table`")

Then when your results are returned simple echo $row[newdate]. The date I used will output the date in this format: Feb 18th (abbreviated month and numeric day with suffix).
You need to pass the date string and the format mask to the function: date_format($date, $format)

You can pretty much do this the same way after your results are returned.
For example:

	$query = mysql_query("select * from `table` ");
	while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($query)){
		$newdate = date_format(strtotime($row[date]), '%b %d');
	}

strtotime will convert a string date to a time stamp.

Other formatting option for date_format()

edit:
This can also be done using the date function. Something like:

$day = date(”d”,strtotime($row['date']));
$month = date(”M”,strtotime($row['date']));

would give you Mar 03

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