I have inherited a database which is used for reservations. The date is stored as Unixtime in a BIGINT(20) field, which seems like a waste, as it would surely fit in an INT field.
However, the question is: This field is used for searches : "do you have a vacancy between x and y". It's only used for full days, and Unixtime is inaccurate (because of time zones) and impossible to translate, when you are looking at raw data. I would love to change all the data to DATE(), but wonder if it would slow searches down - which is the main requirement! Any thoughts on what gives best search speed, INT or DATE(), anyone? -- Pete Clark
