[RESOLVED] strtotime difference in 5.2 / 5.3

phpSimon

Hi all

I'm applying strtotime on an MSSQL datetime column. Note that's MSSQL, not MySQL.

It works fine PHP 5.3.3.

If $datetime is a result from a MSSQL query and is "Jan 1 1971 10:01:00:000AM",

strtotime($datetime) will be 31572060

However, in PHP 5.2.6, the same function gives an empty result.

Ideally I need a function that will work on both 5.3 and 5.2, and I'd rather not change the MSSQL query (I appreciate it's possible to get the datetime result from MSSQL formatted in a different way).

Thanks

bradgrafelman

I don't have a PHP 5.2 install ready to test, but out of curiosity, is there no possibility of upgrading the 5.2 install? PHP 5.2.6 isn't even the latest stable version of the 5.2 branch either - have you tried using PHP 5.2.17 (latest stable as of now) to see if you still have the same issue?

phpSimon

Thanks for the comment...

I'll re-build the server completely at some point with a more recent OS (it's running Ubuntu Intrepid) but for a number of reasons that's not easy at the moment, hence looking for some other workaround.

etully

If the result returned from MSSQL is always in the format:
"Jan 1 1971 10:01:00:000AM"
then could you convert the string to a different form that 5.2 strtotime can handle?


$time_string = "Jan 1 1971 10:01:00:000AM";
preg_match("/^([a-zA-Z]{3}) ([0-9]{1,2}) ([0-9]{4}) ([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):([0-9]{2}):[0-9]{3}([apmAPM]{2})$/",$time_string,$regs);
$month = $regs[1];
$day = $regs[2];
$year = $regs[3];
$hour = $regs[4];
$minute = $regs[5];
$second = $regs[6];
$ampm = $regs[7];
$converted_time_string = $month." ".$day." ".$year." ".$hour.":".$minute.":".$second.$ampm;

$actual_time = strtotime($converted_time_string);

echo $actual_time . "\n\n";

I realize that this defeats the whole purpose of strtotime() but this will work in a pinch. 🙂

phpSimon

Thanks for taking the time to respond and apologies for the slow response. I upgraded the server but I'm sure your alternative will help many people!