What are the drawbacks of storing date and time values as varchar in a database?

Storing date and time values as varchar in a database can lead to inefficient storage, slower query performance, and potential data inconsistency. To solve this issue, it is recommended to store date and time values in their respective datetime or timestamp data types, which are optimized for such data and allow for easier manipulation and querying. 

// Create a table with a datetime column
$sql = "CREATE TABLE events (
    id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    event_name VARCHAR(255),
    event_date DATETIME
)";
$conn->query($sql);

Keywords

varchar database date time drawbacks

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