setlocale() [function.setlocale]: Passing locale category name as string

[AXILLA]

I am running 4.2.2 of PHP and have had it up and running for a couple months. Today I check my site and I see this error relating to each one of my Articles.

I have did not do anything to my site in the last 48 hours - it just began reporting this today. (6-7-2003)

Warning: setlocale() [function.setlocale]: Passing locale category name as string is deprecated. Use the LC_* -constants instead. in /home/cyber/public_html/mainfile.php on line 565

This is what my mainfile.php contains.

function formatTimestamp($time) {
global $datetime, $locale;
setlocale ("LC_TIME", "$locale");
ereg ("([0-9]{4})-([0-9]{1,2})-([0-9]{1,2}) ([0-9]{1,2})🙁[0-9]{1,2})🙁[0-9]{1,2})", $time, $datetime);
$datetime = strftime(""._DATESTRING."", mktime($datetime[4],$datetime[5],$datetime[6],$datetime[2],$datetime[3],$datetime[1]));
$datetime = ucfirst($datetime);
return($datetime);
}

( you can see the results at http://www.cyberworldchampions.com )

I am new to PHP, but a well versed techie. I don't understand how this could be functional for months and then break. Furthermore, I have no idea on how to correct it.

Could someone please assist???

AXILLA

[laserlight]

Change:

setlocale ("LC_TIME", "$locale");

to

setlocale (LC_TIME, "$locale");

[AXILLA]

Laserlight,

You are an angel!!! Worked perfectly.

Much love from the westcoast!

Can anyone tell me why it occurred without any updates to the site?

Looking to prevent any future issues.

Thanks,
AXILLA