Date Functions??

harmonius

i am not sure how to get a script to recognize 2 dates and everything in between, say for instance i wanted a script to recognize winter as being everydate from the 1st of June, to the 31st of August. Anyhelp would be appreciated 😉

koolkrazy

😕

Need more details? i didnt understand your question??

tomhath

As soon as you see to words "date" or "time", think "UNIX timstamp". Php and mysql both support them, they make all datetime comparisons and arithmetic easy. Plenty of information already out there on the subject so I won't repeat it here.

mrmufin

Originally posted by tomhath
As soon as you see to words "date" or "time", think "UNIX timstamp". Php and mysql both support them, they make all datetime comparisons and arithmetic easy.

I wholeheartedly concur.
I came to this conclusion while designing a database structure which ultimately needed to be as 'portable as possible' across different database engines, and the fact that database engines tend to have their own methods of storing and manipulating temporal data.
Since comparisons of temporal data will need to be converted to an integer anyway, just store the temporal data as an integer. PHP offers a splendid array of tools for converting these integer values into 'user-world friendly' values...

little_tris

Try Storing two timestamps (use the mktime() function to generate the Unix timestamps them before putting them into the database). calling them say 'begin_winter' and 'end_winter'.

Then to see if the current date is between these values do something like this:

if((time() > $begin_winter) || (time() < $endwinter)){
//do this
}

All the database will have to do is store 3 values (the season name, when it starts, when it ends). The timestamps only need 1 field each as then are only INT numbers and there is only one of them per date!!

Check the 'Date and time function' listing in the PHP docs at www.php.net for more details.

Hope that this gives a few pointers

harmonius

Thanks ppl, though i was going to try to do it w/o the use of a database, sorry should of mentioned that in the beginning..
thanks anyways.. will install mysql 😉

little_tris

Opps

Sorry. You can store the varables in a PHP include file as well as a database. Ether solution is just as good (just with includes you will not have to install mySQL). Includes should be supported as standard in your PHP edition.

For an include put the following line at the top of the php code:-

include("nameOfInclude.php");

This will add the php code from that file onto the top of you pages code.

Then just add the varables you want keep globel (start and end of winter for instance) into the include file.

So the include file will look something like this=
<?php
$startWinter = '1245667';
$endWinter = '5684985';
?>

just save this in the same folder as the page it is being called from is.

The advantage is that all your varables you want over many pages are stored in one place.

Think thats it.......