Date Format Display Error

[ziriya]

This is probably something stupid that I'm doing...

printf("<h2>Birthday: %s</h2>\n", date('m-d-Y', $myrow["birthday"]));
printf("<h2>Birthday: %s</h2>\n", $myrow["birthday"]);

The top statement outputs an incorrect date: Birthday: 12-31-1969

While the bottom statement correctly outputs:
Birthday: 12-17-1977

I'm sure both statements were run on the same record in my database (plus 12-31-1969 isn't anywhere in the database).

Thanks!

[Xnuiem]

12-31-1969 is 0 when using a UNIX timestamp.

See: http://www.php.net/date for the correct usage of the date function. This basically means you are not storing the date as a timestamp, which date() needs, you are storing it as a string.

[ziriya]

The field is set as a date type in MySQL. Is the date changed into a string when it is pulled out by the query?

[Xnuiem]

it is a string, but that is not the problem since PHP is not a strongly typed language.

The problem, is that date format (10/10/2004) is not a timestamp (103928853) that the date() function needs.

http://www.php.net/date
http://www.php.net/strtotime
http://www.php.net/mktime

[ziriya]

I understand what you are saying now... thanks!

[ellenr]

I have a mysql table with a field: cdate of type: timestamp, length 8. I am trying to update the record as follows:
$cp = "Mixed Rule (See Explanation)"; $m=trim($_POST['misc']);
$d=date("Ymd");
$sql = "UPDATE golfcourse SET
cpath='$cp',
cmsg='$m'
cdate='$d'";
if ( !@mysql_query($sql)) {
echo( '

Error updating Course Information: ' .
mysql_error() . '</p>');
}

I get the following error:
You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'cdate='20050223'' :angry:

What am I doing wrong? I thought any timestamp would update itself when the record was "touched" - but it doesn't update if I just update cpath and cmsg.

NM--I see my missing comma in the sql--amazing how many times I looked at this without seeing it! Anyway, why didn't it automatically update the timestamp? Does it have to be the full length timestamp to work that way?

[Xnuiem]

date() does not return a timestamp, it returns a string.

You may be after the http://www.php.net/time() function.