Use of date function in PHP to output a user-friendly date

I have a MySQL database column named DateAdded.

I'd like to echo this as a readable date/time.

Here is a simplified version of the code I currently have:

$result = mysql_query("
    SELECT ListItem, DateAdded
    FROM lists
    WHERE UserID = '" . $currentid . "' 
    ");
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
    {
    // Make the date look nicer
    $dateadded = date('d-m-Y',$row['DateAdded']);

    echo $row['ListItem'] . ",";
    echo $dateadded;
    echo "<br />";
    }

Is the use of th开发者_Python百科e date function the best way to output a user-friendly date?

Thanks for taking a look,

If you don't plan on outputting dates beyond 2038, you will be fine using date().

Otherwise, use PHP's DateTime which doesn't have that limitation, or mySQL's date formatting functions to format the date directly in the database.

However, you seem to be storing a timestamp in the database. Have you considered switching to a DATETIME field?

It is fine to use date() to show users.

Is there any reason you are not using the DATE type in MySQL?

I sometimes used MySQL's DATE_FORMAT().
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_date-format