Decoding dates with MSSQL

[Anon]

Hello,
I am doing some tries with PHP. I am accessing some database tables on MSSQL. Everything is fine, except that I do not really know how to decode/encode date field values.
Any help.

[Anon]

What's the format for a date column in MSSQL? I know how to do it in MySQL, I'm sure MSSQL has similar functions and an option to automatically save the current date. I'll have to look when I get home and try some things out. What exactly are you trying to do? Just store the current date and retrieve it later?

---John Holmes...

[Anon]

Well, our site is a dynamic site implemented in ASP on top of MSSQL. I am currently working on evaluating PHP used in conjunction with MSSQL. I am simply retrieving some datetime field info and want to display it in a editable field and then save it back in the database. However, the date string that is retrieved is only partial when I display it.
Thanks in advance for your help.

[Anon]

Can you show me what your code looks like to retrieve, show, and store the data again? Also, what type of column is this in the database, datetime?

The default for datetime is yyyy-mm-dd hh:mm:ss, right?

I looked all through the MSSQL manual for what the defaults were but couldn't find them.

I'm thinking that maybe the space is messing things up. I'll have to see what you're actually doing do help anymore...

---John Holmes...

[Anon]

Hi, sorry for the delay.
I do something extremely very simple. I have a datetime field on a table and do a select to retrieve that field. Then I call mssql_fetch_array on the result of the query.

When I access the field it does contain the date but in the format "Oct 31, 20" The year is truncated and I do not get the time.

[Anon]

Hi,

I'm actually encountering the exact same problem, the only difference is that on my
developing machine the date shows up correctly, but on my clients' server my dates
get truncated as well.
I will insert "02/20/2000" in a datetime
field (default length 8) and retrieve
"Feb 20 2" (which would be 8 characters, coincidence?).
According to the manual this has to do with
the fact that MSSQL 7 evaluates datetime constants at runtime.
And that a date string that works for the date formats expected by one language may be unrecognizable if the query is executed by a connection using a different language and date format setting.

This would explain how I can insert/select
the dates just fine on my own machine.
The only problem is that my clients' mssql
server has the same language and date format
settings as I'm using.

I rather not convert my dates contiously, so
if anybody has any suggestions, they're more
than welcome

Arno

[Anon]

Yup, same problem... Have you ever got this sorted...

Note: Using the Perl Module DBD-FreeTDS the results are returned as yyyy-mm-dd hh:ii:ss

[piethein]

We're dealing with a bug in PHP here (see bugs.php.net), the solution to this problem
is to update to the latest version of PHP.
I updated from version 4.0.3pl1 to 4.0.4pl1
and that solved my problem.

Arno

[Anon]

The version of PHP I am using is 4.0.4pl1 with freeTDS under Linux with the following configuration:

./configure \
--with-apxs \
--with-config-file-path=/etc/httpd/conf \
--enable-calendar \
--with-zlib-dir \
--enable-ftp \
--with-imap \
--with-ldap \
--with-gd \
--with-jpeg-dir \
--with-xpm-dir \
--with-ttf \
--with-mysql \
--with-sybase=/usr/local/freetds \
--enable-trans-sid \
--enable-sockets \
--with-regex=system \
--enable-memory-limit