I can NOT make DATE_FORMAT work...any ideas?

Question

Hello all,
In reviewing David Powers' fantastic book, 'PHP Solutions', I decided to do some work with dates in a database.
The table where the dates are stored is called cal_dates and is DATE type.
All the dates are stored as yyyy-mm-dd
When I write my query and add DATE_FORMAT, the page bombs no matter what I try.
As in:
SELECT *
DATE_FORMAT(cal_dates, '%c/%e/%Y') AS cal_dates
FROM cal_data
and I get a white screen.
So, I figured perhaps I should change the alias (the example in Pwers' book on page 390 does not use a different alias, but after struggling with this for almost 2 days, I am now trying anything):
SELECT *
DATE_FORMAT(cal_dates, '%c/%e/%Y') AS cdate
FROM cal_data
and I get another white screen.
Originally, my query was designed with a WHERE clause because I am selecting data from one table based on an a variable, but I read somewhere that DATE_FORMAT should not be used with WHERE...which is funny, since the two examples shown above with WHERE omitted still bomb.
The original query:
SELECT *
FROM cal_data
WHERE cal_data.page_ym = '$dateRef%'
works PERFECTLY. It pulls all information in the table relevant to the $dateRef variable.
The reason I wanted to use DATE_FORMAT is because I wanted to take the dates in my table from yyyy-mm-dd and display them in a different format.
But to no avail. Any thoughts or musings would be appreciated. I'm stonewalled.
Thank you all!
Sincerely,
wordman

Answer 1

iPHP,
I think I have too many queries posted here. I have tried many things in an effort to test what could be wrong, so let's start fresh.
This one works, sans DATE_FORMAT:
$sql = "SELECT page_ym, cal_dates, available, location, event
        FROM cal_data
        WHERE cal_data.page_ym = '$dateRef%'";
Again, I know this one has additional columns, but again, I've been trying many things since the original post and this is the format I'll be wanting to use.
Anyhow, as soon as I add DATE_FORMAT to the query, AND change the alias:
$sql = "SELECT page_ym, cal_dates, available, location, event
        DATE_FORMAT(cal_dates, '%c/%e/%Y') AS cdate
        FROM cal_data
        WHERE cal_data.page_ym = '$dateRef%'";
it bombs. I have used the column name as well as a different name for the alias, same thing.
I'm wondering if I whould use a seperate query just to pull the dates?
Thanks!
Cheers,
wordman