cakephp 3 sql query builder error - sql

Question

Here is my query:
$today = date('m/d/y');
$todays=$this->Tasks->find()
->where(['user_id' => $this->Auth->user('id')])
->andWhere(["DATE_FORMAT(STR_TO_DATE(due_date, '%m/%d/%Y'),'%m/%d/%y')"=>$today]);
$this->set('todays',$todays);
Here is the error im getting:
Error: SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You
have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to
your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near
''05/16/17')' at line 1.
dont know why or how to fix this?
here is the query
SELECT
Tasks.id AS `Tasks__id`,
Tasks.user_id AS `Tasks__user_id`,
Tasks.title AS `Tasks__title`,
Tasks.body AS `Tasks__body`,
Tasks.due_date AS `Tasks__due_date`,
Tasks.complete AS `Tasks__complete`,
Tasks.created AS `Tasks__created`,
Tasks.modified AS `Tasks__modified`
FROM
tasks Tasks
WHERE
(
user_id = :c0
AND
DATE_FORMAT(STR_TO_DATE(due_date, '%m/%d/%y'), '%m/%d/%y') :c1
)

Answer 1

use capital Y instead of small y while calling the date () function. refer to
http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php
for details of formatting dates.
But,
use the date datatype always for storing dates in mariadb. Then use $today = date ("Y-m-d"); Then you can simply compare them without converting and formatting

Answer 2

Since you said in your question's comments that your column is a string containing dates in d/m/Y format, you just need to compare two strings in your query.
$today = date('m/d/Y');
$todays = $this->Tasks->find()
->where(['user_id' => $this->Auth->user('id')])
->where(['due_date' => $today]);
$this->set('todays', $todays);
I recommend you to create a migration to change due_date column type
to date.