What are the drawbacks of using 0000-00-00 as a date in MySQL and what alternative datatype like TIMESTAMP could be more suitable?

Using 0000-00-00 as a date in MySQL can lead to unexpected behavior and errors in date calculations and comparisons. It is not a valid date and can cause issues when querying or manipulating data. A more suitable alternative datatype to use would be TIMESTAMP, which stores both date and time information and allows for more precise date calculations and comparisons. 

// Using TIMESTAMP datatype instead of 0000-00-00 in MySQL
$query = "CREATE TABLE example_table (
    id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    date_created TIMESTAMP
)";
// Execute the query
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
if (!$result) {
    echo "Error creating table: " . mysqli_error($connection);
}

Keywords

MySQL 0000-00-00 date TIMESTAMP datatype

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