What are the common pitfalls and challenges faced when using now() function in MySQL to insert current timestamps and sorting data based on those timestamps in PHP?

When using the now() function in MySQL to insert current timestamps and sorting data based on those timestamps in PHP, a common pitfall is that the timestamps might not be in the correct format for sorting. To solve this issue, you can use the DATE_FORMAT() function in MySQL to format the timestamps in a way that can be easily sorted in PHP. 

// Inserting current timestamp using now() function in MySQL
$query = "INSERT INTO table_name (timestamp_column) VALUES (NOW())";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Retrieving and sorting data based on timestamps
$query = "SELECT * FROM table_name ORDER BY DATE_FORMAT(timestamp_column, '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s') DESC";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);

// Fetching and displaying sorted data
while ($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result)) {
    echo $row['timestamp_column'] . "<br>";
}

Keywords

now() function MySQL timestamps sorting data PHP

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