[RESOLVED] Working with dates in a form

[rprincejr]

I'm having a problem with my form. I have an input box I'm using to input a birth date. Its not a required input. When I test the form leaving the birth date box empty, it returns as 12-31-1969.

If the date box is left empty, I need it to return empty.

Im assuming there is a check needed to prevent this.

Here is the code I currently have;

This is the check at the top of the page

$birthDate = $_REQUEST[birthDate] ? date('d-m-Y', strtotime($_REQUEST[birthDate])) : null;

this is my input box

<input type="text" name="birthDate" id="birthDate" value="<?php echo $birthDate ?>" />

[rprincejr]

I believe I found the problem. I switched the date field in mySQL to be null. Then if a date isnt given, null is used.

From there I used the is_null function. Ive given an example below;

$birthDate = !is_null($_REQUEST[birthDate]) ? date('d-m-Y', strtotime($_REQUEST[birthDate])) : '';

From what Ive researched, this is the best way to deal with empty date fields in mySQL. To anyone using this as their solution, if you change your mySQL date field to null, make sure it says null in the rows that dont have a date. It cannot say 0000-00-00. Because 0000-00-00 is not null. If it does, just go through and delete the date field so that it says null.