Yes, but time() returns a Unix timestamp which has a limit of 2038. For example, what if I would like to calculate the date of 40 years from today? I can't do that with the normal PHP date functions. I would have to use PEAR Date or something similar, which is my original question - of what is the 'official' PHP way to handle this as calculations with dates is a common thing to do. Thanks, Ryan "Mike" <php@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:20041116145505.1D0FE6AE98B@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx > Ryan, > > I had those problems in the past and to simply avoid the matter > altogether, > when I store dates I just do so with the time() function. > > $cur_date = time(); > > That way, when I poll the DB, I have a timestamp that I can then use > date() > to format in whatever manner I wish. > > I haven't run into any problems doing it this way. > > About your specific question, if you want to use your preexisting date > format you'll have to do some string manipulation to pull apart the month, > date and year and then format it how you want to. You'll likely have to > use > a switch to swap the month from the numeric representation to the text > abbreviation. > > But no matter what you do, if you want some flexibility, you'll have to > either change the format in the DB or just do it all on the fly in your > script because the date() function expects you to pass it a timestamp. > > You may be able to come up with something clever using strtotime() > however. > http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php > > -M > > -----Original Message----- > From: Ryan [mailto:rbro@xxxxxxxxxxx] > Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 9:23 AM > To: php-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx > Subject: Re: Date handling > > Hi Robert, > > Storing the date in my database isn't the issue I'm running into. The > problem I'm having is that if I have a date "1950-01-01", how can I > display > it in my PHP script as "Jan 1, 1950". Or if I have "2040-04-01", how to > get > > it to display as "Apr 1, 2040". I can't see a way to do that right now in > the core PHP code using the built-in date functions. > > Thanks, > Ryan > > > "Robert Sossomon" <LoneWolf@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message > news:419A030E.3010203@xxxxxxxxxxxx >> <SNIP> >>> <?php >>> echo strtotime('1950-01-01'); >>> ?> >>> I'm guessing Red Hat Enterprise or at least the kernel I'm using (which >>> is >>> the latest RH kernel) qualifies under the Linux category above. Also, >>> with >>> the application I'm writing, I need to deal with dates after 2038 too. >>> So >>> that is why I'm investigating alternatives - just because I'd like >>> something >>> that would definitely work on any platform and is 'official' as much as >>> possible - rather than have my date handling be OS-specific. >> <SNIP> >> >> How are you entering the date into the Table? Could you not just rewrite >> the page so that the date information is entered differently, then format >> it in the correct way and dump it into the table? I would think that it >> would work to solve your problem in dealing with dates, but that is just >> a > >> guess here. >> >> HTH, >> Robert > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
