[RESOLVED] Timestamp to Strftime Problem

Channel5

Hey guys,

I'm having a problem converting a timestamp from my datebase using strftime().

Basically I want to pull the time out and convert it into a 12 hour time with an AM or PM, but the value it returns isn't correct.

I'm guessing the formats between MySQL and strftime() are different, so is there way to make them correspond with each other?

Suggestions much appreciated.

Weedpacket

Use MySQL's timestamp formatting functions to format the MySQL timestamp?

Channel5

I don't know how to do that yet.

Is this a line of code in my php code? Or do I have to change my MySQL settings? If so, how would I do it?

bradgrafelman

Try using MySQL's date_format() in your query, e.g.

SELECT col1, col2, DATE_FORMAT(date_col, 'date string here') AS date_col FROM ...

I added an 'AS date_col' alias in that example so that if you retrieve an associative array all you'd need to do is $row['date_col'] to get the formatted date.

Channel5

Thanks bro!

Everything's working perfectly now.

Hey...

Wait a minute.

Why is brad banned?

The only guy who helped me is banned? How does that make any sense?

bradgrafelman

Channel5 wrote:
The only guy who helped me is banned?

Heh, not really. I just thought I'd be mischievous and set my custom user title to "Banned" and see if anyone would notice. Despite it being set that way for a very long time, you're actually the first to comment on it. :p

Anyway, glad I could help; don't forget to mark this thread resolved if it is!

Channel5

Brrrrrat! ;P

Yeah, thread resolved. How do I mark it that way?

NogDog

Channel5;10897273 wrote:
Brrrrrat! ;P

Yeah, thread resolved. How do I mark it that way?

Click the "Thread Tools" link at the top of the thread display.

walterquez

Or you can use PHP to format it for you.

echo date('h:i:s a', strtotime($row['date_col']));

Weedpacket

Channel5 wrote:
The only guy who helped me is banned?

You're welcome.

walterquez wrote:
Or you can use PHP to format it for you.

That not working was the original problem: MySQL's timestamps are a different format from everyone else's.

walterquez

That should not matter. The PHP function I used is strtotime, not strftime. strtotime takes anything that looks like a date and it converts it to a datetime value that PHP can use.

laserlight

bradgrafelman wrote:
Heh, not really. I just thought I'd be mischievous and set my custom user title to "Banned" and see if anyone would notice. Despite it being set that way for a very long time, you're actually the first to comment on it.

Gah, a very long time? I only noticed your user title the one and only time I have ever banned someone from this message board, and that was quite recently.

walterquez wrote:
That should not matter. The PHP function I used is strtotime, not strftime. strtotime takes anything that looks like a date and it converts it to a datetime value that PHP can use.

Nonetheless it is probably better to just get this formatting done on the database side, since it is quite possible.

Weedpacket

Huh. strtotime() has been upgraded then. Shows how often and how long it's been since I've had anything to do with MySQL's timestamps.