What are the best practices for defining and using timestamps in PHP and MySQL?

When working with timestamps in PHP and MySQL, it is important to ensure consistency and accuracy in storing and retrieving dates and times. One best practice is to use the TIMESTAMP data type in MySQL to store timestamps, as it automatically updates to the current timestamp when a record is inserted or updated. In PHP, it is recommended to use the date() function to format timestamps and the strtotime() function to convert timestamps to Unix timestamps for easy manipulation.

// Storing a timestamp in MySQL using the TIMESTAMP data type
$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (timestamp_column) VALUES (CURRENT_TIMESTAMP)";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Retrieving and formatting a timestamp in PHP
$query = "SELECT timestamp_column FROM table_name";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
$row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
$timestamp = strtotime($row['timestamp_column']);
$formatted_timestamp = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $timestamp);
echo $formatted_timestamp;