Syntax
------

SYSDATE([precision])

Description
-----------

Returns the current date and time as a value in 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS' or
YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.uuuuuu format, depending on whether the function is used in a
string or numeric context.

The optional precision determines the microsecond precision. See Microseconds
in MariaDB.

SYSDATE() returns the time at which it executes. This differs from the
behavior for NOW(), which returns a constant time that indicates the time at
which the statement began to execute. (Within a stored routine or trigger,
NOW() returns the time at which the routine or triggering statement began to
execute.)

In addition, changing the timestamp system variable with a SET timestamp
statement affects the value returned by NOW() but not by SYSDATE(). This means
that timestamp settings in the binary log have no effect on invocations of
SYSDATE().

Because SYSDATE() can return different values even within the same statement,
and is not affected by SET TIMESTAMP, it is non-deterministic and therefore
unsafe for replication if statement-based binary logging is used. If that is a
problem, you can use row-based logging, or start the server with the mysqld
option --sysdate-is-now to cause SYSDATE() to be an alias for NOW(). The
non-deterministic nature of SYSDATE() also means that indexes cannot be used
for evaluating expressions that refer to it, and that statements using the
SYSDATE() function are unsafe for statement-based replication.

Examples
--------

Difference between NOW() and SYSDATE():

SELECT NOW(), SLEEP(2), NOW();
+---------------------+----------+---------------------+
| NOW()               | SLEEP(2) | NOW()               |
+---------------------+----------+---------------------+
| 2010-03-27 13:23:40 |        0 | 2010-03-27 13:23:40 |
+---------------------+----------+---------------------+

SELECT SYSDATE(), SLEEP(2), SYSDATE();
+---------------------+----------+---------------------+
| SYSDATE()           | SLEEP(2) | SYSDATE()           |
+---------------------+----------+---------------------+
| 2010-03-27 13:23:52 |        0 | 2010-03-27 13:23:54 |
+---------------------+----------+---------------------+

With precision:

SELECT SYSDATE(4);
+--------------------------+
| SYSDATE(4)               |
+--------------------------+
| 2018-07-10 10:17:13.1689 |
+--------------------------+

URL: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/sysdate/