[RESOLVED] messed up date function

jollyollie

I am trying to use the PHP date() function, but my results are not right. I retrieve a timestamp from my MySQL Database (entitled $date.)

echo $date;

returns:
2006-04-30 00:00:00

but this code:

$daynumber=date("j", $date);
$yearnumber=date("Y", $date);
$monthnumber=date("m", $date);
$dayofweek = date("l", $date);
$monthname = date("F", $date);
echo $dayofweek .", ". $monthname ." ". $daynumber  .", ". $yearnumber ;

returns:
Wednesday, December 31, 1969

Houdini

Try this

$date = "2006-04-30 00:00:00";
$date = strtotime($date);
echo date("F j, Y",$date);

Installer

jollyollie -

Your code doesn't work because "date()" takes as the second argument a Unix timestamp, which is not the same as a MySQL timestamp.

dinger

A unix timestamp is an integer (the number of seconds that have surpassed since a certain date - i think it's midnight on jan 1 1970).

A MySQL timestamp is not the same.

I tend to store all of my dates as long integers in a DB and i tend not to use the built-in database date formats. It makes conversion and comparison easier.

Houdini

Well to correct his immediate problem if he simply used the simple conversion suggested in my post, instead of all the sumersaults he was doing (that didn't work) with all those assignments, actually his $date merely need to be converted with the strtotime($date) from his present circumsatnces

Installer

I think you're right, Houdini. The db (MySQL) timestamp works so simply with "strtotime()", why not use it.

jollyollie

Houdini,

This snippet of code was what I was missing to put it in proper format!

$date = strtotime($date);

Thanks everyone!