title: Converting a date in MySQL from string field
body: <p>I'm using a system where the dates are stored as strings in the format <code>dd/mm/yyyy</code>. Is it possible to convert this to <code>yyyy-mm-dd</code> in a SELECT query (so that I can use <code>DATE_FORMAT</code> on it)? Does MySQL have a date parsing function?</p>
  
  <p>Currently the only method I can think of is to concatenate a bunch of substrings, but hopefully there's a simpler solution.</p>
  
  <p>(Unfortunately I can't convert the field to a true date field since it's a meta-table: the same column contains values for different fields that are just strings.)</p>