ProblemYou want to export date values using a format other than the ISO (CCYY-MM-DD) format that MySQL uses by default. This might be a requirement when exporting dates from MySQL to applications that don't understand ISO format. SolutionUse an external utility to rewrite the dates to non-ISO format after exporting the data from MySQL (cvt_date.pl is useful here). Or use the DATE_FORMAT( ) function to rewrite the values during the export operation. DiscussionSuppose that you want to export data from MySQL into an application that doesn't understand ISO-format dates. One way to do this is to export the data into a file, leaving the dates in ISO format. Then run the file through a utility such as cvt_date.pl that rewrites the dates into the required format. Another approach is to export the dates directly in the required format by rewriting them with DATE_FORMAT( ). Suppose that you have the following table: CREATE TABLE datetbl ( i INT, c CHAR(10), d DATE, dt DATETIME, ts TIMESTAMP ); Suppose also that you need to export data from this table, but with the dates in any DATE, DATETIME, or TIMESTAMP columns rewritten in U.S. format (MM-DD-CCYY). A SELECT statement that uses the DATE_FORMAT( ) function to rewrite the dates as required looks like this: SELECT i, c, DATE_FORMAT(d, '%m-%d-%Y') AS d, DATE_FORMAT(dt, '%m-%d-%Y %T') AS dt, DATE_FORMAT(ts, '%m-%d-%Y %T') AS ts FROM datetbl Thus, if datetbl contains the following rows: 3 abc 2005-12-31 2005-12-31 12:05:03 2005-12-31 12:05:03 4 xyz 2006-01-31 2006-01-31 12:05:03 2006-01-31 12:05:03 The statement generates output that looks like this: 3 abc 12-31-2005 12-31-2005 12:05:03 12-31-2005 12:05:03 4 xyz 01-31-2006 01-31-2006 12:05:03 01-31-2006 12:05:03 |