In this matter, MySQL permits us to use a relaxed format to date. We can use any punctuation character between date parts as a delimiter. Some examples are as follows −
mysql> Select date ('2016/10/20'); +---------------------+ | date ('2016/10/20') | +---------------------+ | 2016-10-20 | +---------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql> Select date('2016^10^20'); +--------------------+ | date('2016^10^20') | +--------------------+ | 2016-10-20 | +--------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql> Select date ('2016@10@20'); +---------------------+ | date ('2016@10@20') | +---------------------+ | 2016-10-20 | +---------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec) mysql> Select date ('2016+10+20'); +---------------------+ | date ('2016+10+20') | +---------------------+ | 2016-10-20 | +---------------------+ 1 row in set (0.00 sec)