Converting date formats...

[Anon]

I have this code:

<?

// Get current month and year
// If no $month or $year is supplied it will use the current month/year
$month = (empty($month)) ? date("n") : $month;
$year = (empty($year)) ? date("Y") : $year;

            $first_day = mktime(0,0,0,$month,1,$year);

    $links = date("n",$first_day);

                            $temp = $new = $old = $year;

    $prev = $links - 1;
    $next = $links + 1;

    if ($links == 1)
        {
            $old = $year - 1;
            $prev = 12;
        }

    if ($links == 12)
        {
            $new = $year + 1;
            $next = 1;
        }

?>

... and I need to be able to display $month as the full name ("F"), but I still need to use the ("n") format to move between months.

I was thinking of creating an array: $month_name("", "January", "February", etc...) and then using $month's number as the pointer in that array, but I have no idea how to do it.

Any suggestions?

[Anon]

Well, the array would be $month_name = array('January','February',...); and then you can ask for $month_name[$month]

Doing without the array would require something less than elegant, like:

if(empty($month))
{ $month=date('n');
$month_name=date('F');
}else{
$month_name=date('F',mktime(0,0,0,$month,1,2000)); //The exact year's not important
}

[Anon]

Hayley,

Thanks for the reply. I actually chose to do it a little different. It works, but its probably not the most eloquent way of doing it:

if ($month == 1)
{
$month_name = "January";
}
else
{
if ($month == 2)
$month_name = "February";
if ($month == 3)
$month_name = "March";
if ($month == 4)
$month_name = "April";
if ($month == 5)
$month_name = "May";
if ($month == 6)
$month_name = "June";
if ($month == 7)
$month_name = "July";
if ($month == 8)
$month_name = "August";
if ($month == 9)
$month_name = "September";
if ($month == 10)
$month_name = "October";
if ($month == 11)
$month_name = "November";
if ($month == 12)
$month_name = "December";
}

This is probably the most clumsy way, but at least it works, and in the end I guess that's what counts! 🙂

Thanks again.

[Anon]

An equivalent approach would be a switch statement:

switch($month)
{
case 1: $month_name='January'; break;
case 2: $month_name='February'; break;
...
case 12: $month_name='December'; break;
}

The advantage being that PHP only needs to look at and test the value of $month once instead of up to a dozen times.

[Anon]

Excellent advice! I will adjust my code accordingly.

Thank you very much.