Store and query dates and times

[ts10]

I have to setup a database to store the dates and times of open houses. I have tried several different ways but I don't know what's best.

I'm going to have to query the dates and times for things like:
1) Show me all the open houses before this date
2) Show me all the open houses after this date
3) Show me all the open houses between this range of dates

What are the suggestions that I should use that would most easily allow for searching like that?

mySQL DATETIME, unix timestamp, etc.

Thanks so much!

[drew010]

i would go with a unix timestamp type myself. the reason is because its very easy to convert dates to timestamps in php using functions like [man]strtotime[/man] and use the [man]date[/man] function to output the timestamps in a formatted way. plus, to search for open houses before, after, and in between a timestamp, its a simple less than or greater than since the timestamps are just unsigned longs, therefore the "later" the date, the bigger the timestamp, and the "earlier" the date, the smaller the timestamp.