[Resolved] Odd Date Format

Rodders

I'm exporting my Outlook calendar to a CSV which I then need to use to update my website diary.

I've got the script working to read the file and extract the correct columns from the CSV but I'm getting really stuck with my dates.

You see, Outlook's date format is dd/mm/yyyy but leading zeroes are supressed. I need to rework these into yyyy-mm-dd to insert into MySQL.

Can anyone help me in the right direction ? The PHP and MySQL manuals don't seem to have the functions listed like I've seen before so I'm having real trouble getting what I need.

Cheers

Rich

gardnc

use spilt to split the date into a 3 element array (day, month,year). Then rebuild the date to a new variable by sprinting each array element formated with leading zeros.

i.e.

if $date has the outlook date,

$date = split("/",$date)

$newdate = sprintf("%02d", $date[0]) . "/" . sprintf("%02d", $date[1]) . sprintf("%04d", $date[2])

Or something very similar. Look up the sprint to be sure of the parameter and you may need $date = split("\/",$date) to split on slashes.

Larry

Roger_Ramjet

You do not need to worry about leading zeros when importing dates into MySQL date columns, it will handle 2004-5-23 or 2003-12-7 no problems, even adds the leading zeros for you.

I export from Access to MySQL on a daily basis and use a VBA function in my export query to hack the dates into MySQL date format. It allows me to use the VB date() functions for day, month, year without worrying about how long each one is, then concatenate the parts into the mysql date format. If you can, then do the same in Outlook: always transform the data as close to source as possible.

If you are not up to doing it in VBA then gardnc's solution is the way to go.

Rodders

I've never understood the various 'print' functions so I always find it easier to build my strings in other ways.....

$LessonDate = $filedata[1];
$LessonDate = split("/",$LessonDate);
       $LessonDate = $LessonDate[2] . "-" . $LessonDate[1] . "-" . $LessonDate[0];

Is there any reason why my code is not as good as using print functions ?

The 'split' function worked for me, I was hoping that a date function existed to alter the format I had but using split was easy enough.

Roger, I'm interested in your idea of using VBA specifically for exporting from Outlook to MySQL. I'll send you a private mail with regards to that, don't worry if you can't help...

Rich