How to change VARCHAR type to DATETIME using ALTER in MySQL?

Question

How can I change VARCHAR() type to DATETIME using ALTER in MySQL?

Answer 1

Try this query.

ALTER TABLE  `table_name` CHANGE  `From Date`  `From Date` DATETIME NULL DEFAULT '0000-00-00 00:00:00';

Answer 2

ALTER TABLE <tblName> MODIFY <columnName> dataType constraint;

For your requirement it will be

ALTER TABLE <tblName> MODIFY <columnName> datetime;

Refer http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/alter-table.html

Answer 3

Why not you just use

STR_TO_DATE(str,format) ,

It takes a string str and a format string format and returns a DATETIME value if the format string contains both date and time parts.

Reffer this LINK , Hope it may help you