date sort glitch?

[bryson]

Ok... so my message board right.
2 tables... one for initial posts and another table for replies.
I have a last_update field on the main thread. If anyone replies to a message it updates this field. This way I can sort by the last_update field. So, if someone replies to an old message, it moves that thread to the top of the list.

So, it works fine... except if the date is the year 2000.
2000 dates look like this: 964911926 (9 digits)
And newer dates look like this 1005100226 (10 digits)

This is a glitch?... the smallest number should be at the bottom of the list.

So, anyway... everything is sorted properly except it puts the 9 digit dates at the top. Should be at bottom.

[bryson]

Forget it... i'll just manually zero pad the 9 digit dates.

[mmilano]

why do you need to zero pad it? you're storing a unix timestamp, so it's the number of seconds since jan 1 1970 i think.

a 2003 unix timestamp will be greater than a 2002 , and they are just integers.

is the field type you are using in mysql "integer" ?

note that mysql timestamp field is very different than a unix timestamp.

forgive me if i'm stating the obvious.

[swr]

mmilano is right, you shouldn't need to zero-pad it.

Clearly MySQL is comparing the value as a string, instead of a number. My guess is you've set the data type to "char" or "varchar" or something like that. The type should be "int" (or "unsigned int" or "bigint" if you need your code to work beyond 2038).

[bryson]

you are correct! Made field INT and it's all good.... n00b mistake.