Date and Time Type Overview
A summary of the temporal data types follows. For additional information about properties and storage requirements of the temporal types, see , "Date and Time Types", and , "Data Type Storage Requirements". For descriptions of functions that operate on temporal values, see , "Date and Time Functions".
For the DATE and DATETIME range descriptions, "supported" means that although earlier values might work, there is no guarantee.
MySQL 5.6.4 and up permits fractional seconds for TIME, DATETIME, and TIMESTAMP values, with up to microseconds (6 digits) precision. To define a column that includes a fractional seconds part, use the syntax , where type_name(fsp)type_name is TIME, DATETIME, or TIMESTAMP, and fsp is the fractional seconds precision. For example:
CREATE TABLE t1 (t TIME(3), dt DATETIME(6));
The fsp value, if given, must be in the range 0 to 6. A value of 0 signifies that there is no fractional part. If omitted, the default precision is 0. (This differs from the standard SQL default of 6, for compatibility with previous MariaDB versions.)
MySQL 5.6.5 introduces expanded automatic initialization and updating of temporal types. Any TIMESTAMP column in a table can have these properties, rather than at most one column per table. In addition, these properties are now available for DATETIME columns.
DATEA date. The supported range is
'1000-01-01'to'9999-12-31'. MariaDB displaysDATEvalues in'YYYY-MM-DD'format, but permits assignment of values toDATEcolumns using either strings or numbers.DATETIME[(fsp)]A date and time combination. The supported range is
'1000-01-01 00:00:00.000000'to'9999-12-31 23:59:59.999999'. MariaDB displaysDATETIMEvalues in'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS[.fraction]'format, but permits assignment of values toDATETIMEcolumns using either strings or numbers.As of MariaDB 5.6.4, an optional
fspvalue in the range from 0 to 6 may be given to specify fractional seconds precision. A value of 0 signifies that there is no fractional part. If omitted, the default precision is 0.As of MariaDB 5.6.5, automatic initialization and updating to the current date and time for
DATETIMEcolumns can be specified usingDEFAULTandON UPDATEcolumn definition clauses, as described in , "Automatic Initialization and Updating forTIMESTAMPandDATETIME".TIMESTAMP[(fsp)]A timestamp. The range is
'1970-01-01 00:00:01.000000'UTC to'2038-01-19 03:14:07.999999'UTC.TIMESTAMPvalues are stored as the number of seconds since the epoch ('1970-01-01 00:00:00'UTC). ATIMESTAMPcannot represent the value'1970-01-01 00:00:00'because that is equivalent to 0 seconds from the epoch and the value 0 is reserved for representing'0000-00-00 00:00:00', the "zero"TIMESTAMPvalue.As of MariaDB 5.6.4, an optional
fspvalue in the range from 0 to 6 may be given to specify fractional seconds precision. A value of 0 signifies that there is no fractional part. If omitted, the default precision is 0.Unless specified otherwise, the first
TIMESTAMPcolumn in a table is defined to be automatically set to the date and time of the most recent modification if not explicitly assigned a value. This makesTIMESTAMPuseful for recording the timestamp of anINSERTorUPDATEoperation. You can also set anyTIMESTAMPcolumn to the current date and time by assigning it aNULLvalue, unless it has been defined with theNULLattribute to permitNULLvalues.Automatic initialization and updating to the current date and time can be specified using
DEFAULTandON UPDATEcolumn definition clauses. By default, the firstTIMESTAMPcolumn has these properties, as previously noted. As of MariaDB 5.6.5, anyTIMESTAMPcolumn in a table can be defined to have these properties. Before 5.6.5, at most oneTIMESTAMPcolumn per table can have them, but it is possible to suppress them for the first column and instead assign them to a differentTIMESTAMPcolumn. See , "Automatic Initialization and Updating forTIMESTAMPandDATETIME".NoteThe
TIMESTAMPformat that was used prior to MariaDB is not supported in MariaDB 5.6; see MySQL 3.23, 4.0, 4.1 Reference Manual for information regarding the old format.TIME[(fsp)]A time. The range is
'-838:59:59.000000'to'838:59:59.000000'. MariaDB displaysTIMEvalues in'HH:MM:SS[.fraction]'format, but permits assignment of values toTIMEcolumns using either strings or numbers.As of MariaDB 5.6.4, an optional
fspvalue in the range from 0 to 6 may be given to specify fractional seconds precision. A value of 0 signifies that there is no fractional part. If omitted, the default precision is 0.YEAR[(2|4)]A year in two-digit or four-digit format. The default is four-digit format. In four-digit format, the permissible values are
1901to2155, and0000. In two-digit format, the permissible values are70to69, representing years from 1970 to 2069. MariaDB displaysYEARvalues inYYYYformat, but permits assignment of values toYEARcolumns using either strings or numbers.
The SUM() and AVG() aggregate functions do not work with temporal values. (They convert the values to numbers, losing everything after the first nonnumeric character.) To work around this problem, convert to numeric units, perform the aggregate operation, and convert back to a temporal value. Examples:
SELECT SEC_TO_TIME(SUM(TIME_TO_SEC(Notetime_col))) FROMtbl_name; SELECT FROM_DAYS(SUM(TO_DAYS(date_col))) FROMtbl_name;
The MariaDB server can be run with the MAXDB SQL mode enabled. In this case, TIMESTAMP is identical with DATETIME. If this mode is enabled at the time that a table is created, TIMESTAMP columns are created as DATETIME columns. As a result, such columns use DATETIME display format, have the same range of values, and there is no automatic initialization or updating to the current date and time. See , "Server SQL Modes".