I am currently working on a client project with a custom solution from someone else, that has messy date strings all over … oh what fun :)

STR_TO_DATE to the rescue! [MySQL Date functions]

SELECT whatever
  FROM table
 WHERE STR_TO_DATE('21-02-2016', '%d-%m-%Y') > CURDATE()

SELECT whatever

FROM table

WHERE STR_TO_DATE('21-02-2016', '%d-%m-%Y') > CURDATE()

’21-02-2016′, ‘%d-%m-%Y’ does the magic and tells STR_TO_DATE how to treat the string.

Specifier	Description
`%a`	Abbreviated weekday name (`Sun`..`Sat`)
`%b`	Abbreviated month name (`Jan`..`Dec`)
`%c`	Month, numeric (`0`..`12`)
`%D`	Day of the month with English suffix (`0th`, `1st`, `2nd`, `3rd`, …)
`%d`	Day of the month, numeric (`00`..`31`)
`%e`	Day of the month, numeric (`0`..`31`)
`%f`	Microseconds (`000000`..`999999`)
`%H`	Hour (`00`..`23`)
`%h`	Hour (`01`..`12`)
`%I`	Hour (`01`..`12`)
`%i`	Minutes, numeric (`00`..`59`)
`%j`	Day of year (`001`..`366`)
`%k`	Hour (`0`..`23`)
`%l`	Hour (`1`..`12`)
`%M`	Month name (`January`..`December`)
`%m`	Month, numeric (`00`..`12`)
`%p`	`AM` or `PM`
`%r`	Time, 12-hour (`hh:mm:ss` followed by `AM` or `PM`)
`%S`	Seconds (`00`..`59`)
`%s`	Seconds (`00`..`59`)
`%T`	Time, 24-hour (`hh:mm:ss`)
`%U`	Week (`00`..`53`), where Sunday is the first day of the week
`%u`	Week (`00`..`53`), where Monday is the first day of the week
`%V`	Week (`01`..`53`), where Sunday is the first day of the week; used with `%X`
`%v`	Week (`01`..`53`), where Monday is the first day of the week; used with `%x`
`%W`	Weekday name (`Sunday`..`Saturday`)
`%w`	Day of the week (`0`=Sunday..`6`=Saturday)
`%X`	Year for the week where Sunday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with `%V`
`%x`	Year for the week, where Monday is the first day of the week, numeric, four digits; used with `%v`
`%Y`	Year, numeric, four digits
`%y`	Year, numeric (two digits)
`%%`	A literal “`%`” character
`%x`	`x`, for any “`x`” not listed above

Transform malformed MySQL dates … String to Date

Alexander