I have tried playing around with different data-types, but nothings working.

I just want to save a date and time the 'TheDate' field in my database... heres what i've tried.

WITH A TIMESTAMP DATA TYPE
$datevar = time();
$sql="INSERT INTO Persons (TheDate)
VALUES
($datevar)";
but when I call it in it outputs all 0's

WITH A TIMESTAMP DATA TYPE
$datevar = time();
$sql="INSERT INTO Persons (TheDate)
VALUES
($datevar)";
and then when I'm calling it in i do the following (the $row because it's coming out in a table):
date("d-m-y h:i:s", $row['TheDate']

WITH A DATETIME DATA TYPE
$datevar = date("Y-m-d",time());
$sql="INSERT INTO Persons (TheDate)
VALUES
($datevar)";
but when I call it in it reads the -'s as minus signs and subtracts the month and day... (similarly with dividing the '/' signs) I've tried ALL sorts of combinations with the diff letters (ymdhis..etc) and everything... but sometimes it calculates and sometimes it says my query was invalid and that i should check my syntax (it says check the syntax before "" and tells me the last few digits of my time)

I've also tried to save with a varchar datatype
$datevar = ("d-m-y",time());
$sql="INSERT INTO Persons (TheDate)
VALUES
($datevar)";
but when it still doesn't work.

thanks in advance for all your help!
P.S for my own interest, when u save something as a timestamp database, and then u retrieve it and echo it, does it echo it as the actual time stamp (and u have to use the date() function to format it), or does it turn it into YYYY-MM-DD-HH:M:SS for you?

You are making your life complex for nothing...
It's not working because mysql doesn't know what exactly you are giving him as input.
If it's the date/time of the moment you want:

create table tst(
  tst timestamp,
  tdt datetime
);

insert into tst (tst, tdt) values (now(), now());
insert into tst (tst, tdt) values ('2028-10-25', '2034/12/24');
insert into tst (tst, tdt) values ('1978-10-25 18:03:25', '999/12/31 23:59:999');

select * from tst;
+---------------------+---------------------+
| tst                 | tdt                 |
+---------------------+---------------------+
| 2009-02-20 00:56:27 | 2009-02-20 00:56:27 | 
| 2028-10-25 00:00:00 | 2034-12-24 00:00:00 | 
| 1978-10-25 18:03:25 | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 | 
+---------------------+---------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

It gives you an "human language" representation of it's internal format.
You can shape it your way using mysql's time and date functions like unix_timestamp() and date_format().
I recommand you to go that way, it's simplier and faster than using PHP date()
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/...unix-timestamp
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/...on_date-format

select unix_timestamp(tst), unix_timestamp(tdt) from tst;
+---------------------+---------------------+
| unix_timestamp(tst) | unix_timestamp(tdt) |
+---------------------+---------------------+
|          1235087787 |          1235087787 | 
|          1856037600 |          2050527600 | 
|           278183005 |                   0 | 
+---------------------+---------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

select date_format(tst,'%d - %M - %Y'), date_format(tdt,'%r in the %j day of %Y') from tst;
+---------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| date_format(tst,'%d - %M - %Y') | date_format(tdt,'%r in the %j day of %Y') |
+---------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| 20 - February - 2009            | 12:56:27 AM in the 051 day of 2009        | 
| 25 - October - 2028             | 12:00:00 AM in the 358 day of 2034        | 
| 25 - October - 1978             | 12:00:00 AM in the 32212254 day of 0000   | 
+---------------------------------+-------------------------------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)