title: php mysql date/time question
body: <p>I've built a small application which has User Management, a frontend console to enter data and a backend console to control parts of the frontend. The frontend adds rows to a MySQL database which are timestamped. The backend needs to be able to select rows from the database between X and Y dates.</p>
  
  <p>Everything works so far, except the date part which I'm really struggling with.</p>
  
  <p>The frontend SQL input looks like this (simplified with spurious code removed):</p>
  
  <pre><code>$date = time();
  $top_level_category = $_POST['top_level_category'];
  $sub_level_category = $_POST['sub_level_category'];
  $company = $_POST['company'];
  $agent_name = $_POST['agent_name'];
  $ticket_id = $_POST['ticket_id'];
  
  $sql = "INSERT INTO dacc_data ("
       .     "id, top_level_category, sub_level_category, "
       .     "agent_name, date, ticket_id, company"
       . ") VALUES ("
       .     "NULL, '$top_level_category', '$sub_level_category', "
       .     "'$agent_name', FROM_UNIXTIME('$date'), '$ticket_id', '$company'"
       . ")"
  ;
  
  $result = mysql_query($sql) or die (mysql_error());  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>That seems to work ok, the timestamp is being picked up and added to a DATETIME column in my table. It displays as dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss within the database.</p>
  
  <p>So ... my first question is - is this the right way to do it?</p>
  
  <p>The second question being, what sort of SQL statement would I need to pull out an array of rows between X and Y date.</p>
  
  <p>Apologies if this is rambling a bit, hope it's clear but if you need more information let me know.</p>