Convert User entered date and time to Unix Timestamp before inserting to database

permalink · #1 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

How do you convert a user inputted date to a unix timestamp before
insterting it into your database? I have a form, with a textfield for
a date that the user inputs in the format mm-dd-yyyy and three dropdow
boxes for hours, minutes, and AM/PM. All of these need to be considered
together and converted to one Unix Timestamp and then inserted to the
MYSQL date field. The type of field is INT (11) so that I can instead
of the standard 0000-00-00 format of MYSQL so that I can do better
calculations and queries. How can this be accomplished?

Thanks.

permalink · #2 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

Here's some code to illustrate my question. I changed the dropdown
boxes to input boxes to make it shorter to post, but the concept is the
same...

<?php require_once('Connections/con_date.php'); ?>
<?php
mysql_select_db($database_con_date, $con_date);
$query_rs_date = "SELECT * FROM date_time";
$rs_date = mysql_query($query_rs_date, $con_date) or
die(mysql_error());
$row_rs_date = mysql_fetch_assoc($rs_date);
$totalRows_rs_date = mysql_num_rows($rs_date);
?>

<body>
<form action="" method="post" name="date_form" id="date_form">
<p>Date:
<input name="date" type="text" id="date">
</p>
<p>Hour:

<input name="hour" type="text" id="hour" size="2" maxlength="2">
Minute:
<input name="minute" type="text" id="minute" size="2"
maxlength="2">
<select name="am_pm" id="am_pm">
<option value="0">AM</option>
<option value="1">PM</option>
</select>
</p>
<p>
<input type="submit" name="Submit" value="Submit">
</p>
</form>
</body>
</html>
<?php
mysql_free_result($rs_date);
?>

permalink · #3 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

In article <1102902388.009674.102040@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups .com>, perplexed wrote:
> How do you convert a user inputted date to a unix timestamp before
> insterting it into your database? I have a form, with a textfield for
> a date that the user inputs in the format mm-dd-yyyy and three dropdow
> boxes for hours, minutes, and AM/PM. All of these need to be considered
> together and converted to one Unix Timestamp and then inserted to the
> MYSQL date field. The type of field is INT (11) so that I can instead
> of the standard 0000-00-00 format of MYSQL so that I can do better
> calculations and queries. How can this be accomplished?

here are some never-to-forget functions:

mysql: dateformat, from_unixtime, unixtime
php: strtotime

--
Met vriendelijke groeten,
Tim Van Wassenhove <http://www.timvw.info>

permalink · #4 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

If you properly validated the date and time fields after user input,
you could then create a PHP timestamp by inserting the proper string
portions of the date into a PHP timestamp function. You would then
have a PHP timestamp for PHP purposes only.

For instance, below, you place the contents of your hour and minute
variable into the function as well as the proper relative string
sections of your date string using the substr function:

mktime($hour,$minute,0,substr($date,0,2),substr($d ate,3,2),substr($date,6,4));

You now have a PHP timestamp, not a MYSQL timestamp.

Note that before you load the PHP timestamp function above, you would
adjust the hour variable for AM/PM in your edit function. For
instance, if your user entered 2AM, you would need to change the
variable to 14 prior to entering it in the PHP timestamp function.

You now have a PHP timestamp for whatever purposes you need it in PHP.

Why couldn't you then just load your database with the standard MYSQL
date timestamp 0000-00-00 00:00:00. You could always pull a range of
dates back out of your database and easily convert them back into PHP
timestamps, etc. or whatever else for complex calculations (PHP which
would be the best place to perform these calculations anyway). Again
using similar string manipulation techniques!

So just format the user input for entry into the database in the
standard timestamp field format 0000-00-00 00:00:00.

You just load a PHP variable as follows:

$temp_date =
substr($date,6,4)."-".substr($date,0,2)."-".substr($date,2)."
".$hour.":"$minute.":00";

and then put this in your database? Remember to have your edit
function put '0's' where they are required by your database! If March,
then the $temp_date would end up having '03' in the month section of
the string, so you have to analyze the user input in some sort of edit
function and translate the input as indicated.

The key to all this is your edit of the user data prior to entering it
in the database.

When you later call your data out of your database by a range of dates,
you could convert the MYSQL timestamps back into PHP timestamps, etc.
fairly easily, again, by manipulating the strings. Sometimes it seems
best to leave the database as just a repository with the proper data
types and to use PHP to manipulate the data once you have called it.
For instance, if you later pulled this out of the database: 2004-01-02
14:06:00 , it would be fairly straightforward getting this string back
into a PHP timestamp -
$variable= "2004-01-02 14:06:00";
$timestamp=mktime(substr($variable,11,2),substr($v ariable,14,2),substr($variable,17,2),substr($varia ble,8,2),subst($variable,5,2),substr($variable,0,4 ));

Apologies if I missed the mark, but I think its best in most situations
to let PHP be the middleman and keep the data standard?

I did a little of this in the past. Let me know if I this helps.
Scott

permalink · #5 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

Scott,

Thank you. This is my first project with intensive date/time functions
in php/mysql. I was not sure which method to use php timestamps and
have a INT type data field or to use a MYSQL timestamp field. Now I
realize that MYSQL timestamp is the way to go. Now I just need to
figure out the best way to get the user to input the correct format,
validate it and then insert it to MYSQL. I will figure out the queries
to sort by date and convert from MYSQL timestamp to PHP timestamp
afterward.

Thanks for the help.
Chris

permalink · #6 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

perplexed wrote:
> Scott,
>
> Thank you. This is my first project with intensive date/time functions
> in php/mysql. I was not sure which method to use php timestamps and
> have a INT type data field or to use a MYSQL timestamp field. Now I
> realize that MYSQL timestamp is the way to go. Now I just need to
> figure out the best way to get the user to input the correct format,
> validate it and then insert it to MYSQL. I will figure out the queries
> to sort by date and convert from MYSQL timestamp to PHP timestamp
> afterward.

By the way, as far as MySQL column types go, I'd say you need a DATETIME
column and not a TIMESTAMP column: a TIMESTAMP column is automatically
updated by the database whenever the row is updated, and since you were
talking about storing a user-entered date and time that may not be what
you want.

But probably you were already aware of that.

JP

--
Sorry, <devnull@cauce.org> is een "spam trap".
E-mail adres is <jpk"at"akamail.com>, waarbij "at" = @.

permalink · #7 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

I noticed that Message-ID:
<1102910914.898598.227430@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups .com> from perplexed
contained the following:

>Thank you. This is my first project with intensive date/time functions
>in php/mysql. I was not sure which method to use php timestamps and
>have a INT type data field or to use a MYSQL timestamp field. Now I
>realize that MYSQL timestamp is the way to go.

It is? I find UNIX timestamps easier if you don't have to deal with
dates before 1970. The only downside I can see is that you need php
functions to read them ie I can't read a date directly in phpMyadmin for
instance.

It all depends on the app.

--
Geoff Berrow (put thecat out to email)
It's only Usenet, no one dies.
My opinions, not the committee's, mine.
Simple RFDs http://www.ckdog.co.uk/rfdmaker/

permalink · #8 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

.oO(scotty)

>So just format the user input for entry into the database in the
>standard timestamp field format 0000-00-00 00:00:00.
>
>You just load a PHP variable as follows:
>
>$temp_date =
>substr($date,6,4)."-".substr($date,0,2)."-".substr($date,2)."
>".$hour.":"$minute.":00";
>
>and then put this in your database? Remember to have your edit
>function put '0's' where they are required by your database!

sprintf() might come in handy to add leading zeros where necessary:

$temp_date = sprintf('%u-%02u-%02u %02u:%02u:00', ...);

>For instance, if you later pulled this out of the database: 2004-01-02
>14:06:00 , it would be fairly straightforward getting this string back
>into a PHP timestamp -
>$variable= "2004-01-02 14:06:00";
>$timestamp=mktime(substr($variable,11,2),substr($ variable,14,2),substr($variable,17,2),substr($vari able,8,2),subst($variable,5,2),substr($variable,0, 4));

Much too complicated, DATE_FORMAT() and UNIX_TIMESTAMP() exist in MySQL.

>Apologies if I missed the mark, but I think its best in most situations
>to let PHP be the middleman and keep the data standard?

Yep.

Micha

permalink · #9 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

.oO(perplexed)

>How do you convert a user inputted date to a unix timestamp before
>insterting it into your database?

You don't. If you want to store dates in a database use a native date
type like DATETIME. MySQL offers tons of functions to work with dates.

Micha

permalink · #10 (**permalink**) 12-13-2004

.oO(perplexed)

>Now I just need to
>figure out the best way to get the user to input the correct format,
>validate it and then insert it to MYSQL.

1) Split the user submitted string into its values. If you're sure the
format will always be like 'mm-dd-yyyy' you could try it with regular
expressions, sscanf() or explode():

$test = '12-13-2004';
sscanf($test, '%u-%u-%u', $month, $day, $year);

or

$values = explode('-', $test);

2) Validate the date. Use the values from above and checkdate() to see
if the entered date is valid.

3) Validate the time. Check that $hour is between 1 and 12, $minute
between 0 and 59 (don't omit this check even if you use a dropdown box
with just a few values). Then change from 12-hour time to 24-hour time
according to the am/pm setting.

4) Now you have all the values for date and time and can insert them
into the database.

HTH
Micha

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