SQL Nearest Date

Question

I need to get a date such as '2010-04-27' as a string in php and find the nearest 5 dates in a table. The date in the table are saved as a date type.

Answer 1

you could also query the difference eg. something like

abs(datediff(date, $date))

then order by this

Answer 2

you can use DATEDIFF + ABS

SELECT ABS(DATEDIFF(myfield,'2010-04-27')) AS diff FROM mytable ORDER BY diff LIMIT 5;