In your particular case, you can do both from/to that format inside MySQL:

mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(875996580);
        -> '1997-10-04 22:23:00'
mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(875996580) + 0;
        -> 19971004222300
mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(UNIX_TIMESTAMP(),
    ->                      '%Y %D %M %h:%i:%s %x');
        -> '2003 6th August 06:22:58 2003'


mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP();
        -> 882226357
mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP('1997-10-04 22:23:00');
        -> 875996580
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See the linked doc page for details and other examples. I would also suggest to store dates using one of the native date formats, like datetime.