how to format a date variable

Hello All, If I issue the comand date(d."/".m."/".Y." ".H.":".i.":".s) I get the Today's date and time formated accordingly. I can do the same with MySQL by using an internal function on the SQL select statement. I've got a variable that is a MySQL native Date field but it was not and cannot be formated during the SELECT statement. This statement fills a variable called $OrderDate which is them used for lots of operations. So what I need is to format variable $OrderDate to Day/Month/year Hour:Min:Sec.. How can I do it the same way as the Date() function above? Thank you all!