[RESOLVED] Date Function?

Scooby_Doo

Ok I've build a simple form to add a date to a database.

I've read php.net's date function and others from google but I can't seem to get it to work.

Here is a form that lets the user to choose the date.

I would like to know how to use php to insert the date chosen in the drop downs into the database and how to use the data formats from the data function to display it a certain way. Thanks

(Here's the code.)

<html>
<head>
<title>My Date Form</title>

</head>
<form method="POST">

Month: <select name="month">
<?php

for($month=1;$month<=12;$month++) {

echo "<option>" . $month . "</option>\n";

}
?>
</select>

Day: <select name="day">
<?php

for($day=1;$day<=31;$day++) {

echo "<option>" . $day . "</option>\n";

}
?>
</select>

Year: <select name="year">
<?php

for($year=1995;$year<=2007;$year++) {

echo "<option>" . $year . "</option>\n";

}
?>
</select>
</form>

bradgrafelman

Scooby Doo wrote:
I would like to know how to use php to insert the date chosen in the drop downs into the database

Well that's easy enough... just take the POST'ed values and INSERT them in the YYYY-MM-DD format (assuming you're using a DATE column, which I don't know why you wouldn't be...). Don't forget to sanitize the incoming data with a function such as [man]mysql_real_escape_string/man (or, alternatively, simply casting the three pieces of data to integers).

Note that you mind want to verify that the given date is valid using a function such as [man]checkdate/man before INSERT'ing it into your database.

Scooby Doo wrote:
and how to use the data formats from the data function to display it a certain way.

What formats? What function?

bpat1434

Well, easiest thing to do is store the date in the database as a unixtimestamp. This way you can format it as you please without any extra calls later in your php code. Or you can store it in the MySQL format of dates and just reformat it as needed during your SELECT query. I'll show both:

Both ways will assume the following:

<?php

$month = int_val($_POST['month']);
$day = int_val($_POST['day']);
$year = int_val($_POST['year']);

Unix Timestamp

$unixtime = mktime(12,0,0,$month, $day, $year);

MySQL Format

$mysqltime = $year;
$mysqltime .= (strlen($month) < 2) ? '0'.$month : $month;
$mysqltime .= (strlen($day) < 2) ? '0'.$day : $day;

// $mysqltime is now like: YYYYMMDD

Then, it's just a matter of converting it after getting the timestamp back from MySQL into the proper format like:

$date = date('M j, Y', $unixtime);

Or, using the MySQL built-in library to do it for you:

$sql = "SELECT DATE_FORMAT(`timestamp_column`, '%b %e, %Y')
FROM `table_name`";

Hope that helps.

EDIT
Stupid slow university wireless network!!

Scooby_Doo

Thanks both you you that was very help full.

I read php.net/function.date like 10 times and couldn't understang how to do that simple task.

thanks again.