What are the best practices for linking individual dates to a database in PHP?

When linking individual dates to a database in PHP, it is important to use the proper data type for storing dates in the database and to format dates correctly for insertion and retrieval. The best practice is to use the DATE data type in the database for storing dates and to format dates in the 'Y-m-d' format before inserting them into the database. When retrieving dates from the database, format them back to the desired format for display.

// Assuming $date contains the date to be inserted into the database
$formattedDate = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($date));

// Inserting the formatted date into the database
$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (date_column) VALUES ('$formattedDate')";
// Execute the query

// Retrieving and formatting date from the database
$query = "SELECT date_column FROM table_name WHERE id = 1";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
$row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);
$dateFromDB = date('m/d/Y', strtotime($row['date_column']));
echo $dateFromDB;