Entry

How to format a date for MySQL

Aug 22nd, 2003 03:37
Nick Nettleton, Mike Scott, D Goosen,

MySQL's default DATE field format is YYYY-MM-DD; however, when 
using getdate(), accessing the 'mon' variable of the resulting array 
doesn't zero-substitute (i.e., it returns 7, not 07, etc.).

Here's one way to format the date for MySQL:

#?php

// getdate function, taken as array to access vars

$today = getdate();
$year = $today['year'];
$month = $today['mon'];
$mday = $today['mday'];

// zero-substitutes MONTH if less than 10, concatenates 'mon' var 

if ($month < 10) {
$month = "0";
$month .= $today['mon'];
}

// concatenates date in MySQL date format YYYY-MM-DD

$date = $year;
$date .= "-";
$date .= $month;
$date .= "-";
$date .= $mday;

print($date);

#?>

------------------
There's a much simpler solution that only takes one line:-

<?php
  print strftime( '%Y-%m-%d' ) ;
?>

In addition, if you want to format numbers in output, e.g. to add 
leading zeroes, use sprintf. For example:

<?php
  $today = getdate ;
  print sprintf( '%4d-%02d-%02d', $today['year'], $today['mon'], $today
['mday'] ) ;
?>

MikeS.

--------------------

// even faster:

$date = date( "Ymd" ) ;

// mysql accepts date/time input in the format yyyymmddhhiiss
// nick