[RESOLVED] Inserting characters into variable

coldwerturkey

I'm using my own manualy entered timestamps, and for user ease-of-use its just,

YYYYMMDD-HH:MM

I'm using str_replace() and store it in the database as YYYYMMDDHHMM for easy greater/less than todays date queries,

When editing, I need to call YYYYMMDDHHMM and put it back to the original YYYY-HH:MM format so I don't confuse people,

is there any function to add text after x# of digits into a variable?

Thanks in advanced, I don't even know where to start searching for this one,

leatherback

you should store the time in a timestamp for easy retrieving. that will also solve your question. edit: timestamp/datetime/.. field

coldwerturkey

I would except, the two fields (expire and start) have to be entered manually by the user, so I can't right?

thats my query below, if it makes thing a littler clearer

$rightnow = date("YmdHi"); //prints YYYYMMDDHHMM
mysql_query("SELECT * FROM alerts WHERE expire > {$rightnow} AND start < {$rightnow}");

leatherback

of course you can. Have a look at things like strtotime and other [man]time[/man] functions.

to ensure correct formatting you could consider using a calender script & hour / minute text fields. That would make it more certain for you to get the format right.

Drakla

If you're just going to stick with the string thing then you can do something like this

$str = 'YYYYMMDD';

$str = substr_replace($str, '-', 6, 0);
$str = substr_replace($str, '-', 4, 0);

echo $str

coldwerturkey

brilliant Drakla, exactly what I was looking for,