Question: My Queries looks like this

```
WHERE `Project`.`user_id` = 9 
  AND `Project`.`project_status` = 1 
  AND `Project`.`project_type_id` = 4
  AND `Project`.`approval_date` >= '01/08/2012' 
  AND `Project`.`approval_date` <= '01/12/2012'

```

I do have a record that matches this criteria, I actually created the query based on one of the records but it does not return. I really do not want to use the `BETWEEN` because the application can either use start date or end date

Answer: 
This looks as if it should work on first glance, however the values you have supplied **are not valid datetimes**. Try this instead

```
WHERE `Project`.`user_id` = 9 
AND `Project`.`project_status` = 1 
AND `Project`.`project_type_id` = 4
AND `Project`.`approval_date` >= '2012-01-08 00:00:00' 
AND `Project`.`approval_date` <= '2012-01-12 00:00:00'

```
My main problem was getting the string to format into datetime. kissmyface was correct on just structuring it correctly so mysql could understand. So I used php to convert it before sending it out. 

```
"Project.approval_date >= '".date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime($start))."'";
"Project.approval_date <= '".date("Y-m-d H:i:s",strtotime($end))."'";

```

this was pretty much my solution. unless anyone knows away to do the exact same thing on mysql side.