Re: Convert text to date.

[Larry Irwin]

Yes. Import it as a varchar, then set up a mysql function to parse the input and convert it to a date. Then convert the data. Then drop and rename columns.

drop function if exists myconvdate;
delimiter //
create function myconvdate (indate varchar(10)) returns date deterministic
begin
declare ccyymmdd date;
your code to parse indate and assign to ccyymmdd;
return ccyymmdd;
end;
//
delimiter ;

Then convert your data:
alter table xyz add column newdate date;
update xyz set newdate=myconvdate(olddate);
alter table xyz drop column olddate;
alter table xyz rename column newdate olddate;