Mysql date formatting and ordering

Question

I have a table where the dating is not standard and need to somehow organise the rows by date and time.

job_date    |    job_time
=========================
12/12/2012  |   10.30am  
11/10/2012  |    9.00pm  
14/11/2012  |   11.50pm  

Is there any way of formatting these within mysql. I have looked at the DATE_FORMAT() function but the examples I have found don't seem to relate to the format within my tables.

Answer 1

SELECT *, STR_TO_DATE(CONCAT(job_date,' ',job_time), 'Ymd H:i:s') AS date_format from table ORDER BY date_format DESC

Answer 2

The key method is STR_TO_DATE . I will give you two solutions :

first : if you don't want to change your database :

SELECT jobdate, STR_TO_DATE(job_time,'%h:%i%p')AS real_job_time FROM yourtable ORDER BY real_job_time;

second : if you can modify your database, use the TIME format :

ALTER TABLE yourtable 
    MODIFY COLUMN job_time TIME NOT NULL;
UPDATE yourtable SET job_time = STR_TO_DATE(job_time,'%h:%i%p');

and to select

SELECT jobdate,job_time FROM yourtable ORDER BY job_time

I think the second solution is by far the best and that you should choose it.

Answer 3

Obviously storing it as a correct date would be a lot better and result in quicker queries.

SELECT *
FROM table
ORDER BY substr(job_date, -4), substr(job_date, 4, 2), substr(job_date, 1, 2)