SQL Date Formatting by Database: MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL & More

Date and time formatting syntax is not portable across database engines. A format token that means month in one system can mean minutes in another. These examples format the same timestamp as 2026-10-02 13:04:05 in MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, SQLite, and Oracle.

Formatting functions return text for display or export. Keep values in date/time types for comparisons, sorting, and date arithmetic; don’t compare formatted strings as dates.

Quick reference

MySQL and MariaDB

Use DATE_FORMAT() with percent-prefixed specifiers. %m is the month; %i is the minute:

SELECT DATE_FORMAT('2026-10-02 13:04:05', '%Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s') AS formatted;

formatted
---------------------
2026-10-02 13:04:05

MariaDB uses the same basic DATE_FORMAT() tokens. Locale-dependent names and other options can vary; see the MySQL 8.4 DATE_FORMAT() reference, MariaDB DATE_FORMAT() reference, and SQLiz’s MySQL DATE_FORMAT() guide.

PostgreSQL

Use to_char() with a template. PostgreSQL uses MM for month and MI for minute:

SELECT to_char(
    timestamp '2026-10-02 13:04:05',
    'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'
) AS formatted;

formatted
---------------------
2026-10-02 13:04:05

See PostgreSQL’s data type formatting functions and SQLiz’s to_char() reference.

SQL Server

For a fixed ISO-style output, CONVERT() accepts a style number. Style 120 formats a value as a 24-hour yyyy-mm-dd hh:mi:ss string:

SELECT CONVERT(char(19), CAST('2026-10-02T13:04:05' AS datetime2), 120) AS formatted;

formatted
-------------------
2026-10-02 13:04:05

See Microsoft’s CAST and CONVERT styles and SQLiz’s CONVERT() reference.

SQLite

Use strftime() with percent-prefixed substitutions. In SQLite, %M means minute, unlike MySQL/MariaDB where %M means a month name:

SELECT strftime('%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S', '2026-10-02 13:04:05') AS formatted;

formatted
-------------------
2026-10-02 13:04:05

See SQLite’s date and time functions and strftime() reference.

Oracle

Use TO_CHAR() with a date format model. Oracle and PostgreSQL both use MM for month and MI for minute in their common timestamp masks:

SELECT TO_CHAR(
    TIMESTAMP '2026-10-02 13:04:05',
    'YYYY-MM-DD HH24:MI:SS'
) AS formatted
FROM dual;

FORMATTED
-------------------
2026-10-02 13:04:05

See Oracle’s TO_CHAR datetime reference and SQLiz’s Oracle TO_CHAR() datetime guide.

Format token differences

Don’t copy format strings between engines without checking the tokens. For example:

SQL Server’s style-number form uses fixed layouts instead of per-token patterns. For more database-specific patterns and tokens, follow the reference links above.