Question: I have been trying to use `date_format`, however as far as I know, it only takes timestamps and then it formats the date in whatever way you want to display it.

My issue is the following, the dates in my database are with the following format:

```
 2012-05-14 // (Y-m-d)

```

and I want to display them as: `June 14th, 2012` or the closest format to that.

Is there any built-in date in PHP to make such transformation?
Thanks!

Answer: 
Do the transformation in the database, so you don't do multiple round-trips through various string/binary formats each time:

```
SELECT DATE_FORMAT(yourdatefield, '%M %D, %Y')

```

relevant docs here: <http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_date-format>

Anything else will require the following transformations sequence:

```
mysql native -> mysql string -> php string -> php timestamp -> php string
v.s.
mysql native -> mysql string -> php string

```
<http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php>

`echo date("F jS, Y", strtotime($mysql_row_date_goes_here));`