Php Date-Formatting Help

Hello All,

I have a date value that I pull from a .csv file.
After reading the file and storing the values in an array the value of
the date could
be found in $array[1], for example.
================================================== ===========
while (($data = fgetcsv($handle,5000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
$mydate = $data[3]; // here is the array value that holds the date
}
================================================== ===========
The date will be in either m/d/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy format.
Here is the problem. I need to display this date on the page
in "long" format - i.e. January 5, 2005 instead of 1/5/2005 or
01/05/2005.

I have tried to use the date() function, however I can only get the
formatting to work
with the current date and not with an 'existing' date.

date("d.m.Y", $mydate); // this does not work, I get a date from
1969...

Any advise would be greatly appreciated!

JC

johndcal@gmail.com wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> I have a date value that I pull from a .csv file.
> After reading the file and storing the values in an array the value of
> the date could
> be found in $array[1], for example.
> ================================================== ===========
> while (($data = fgetcsv($handle,5000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
> $mydate = $data[3]; // here is the array value that holds the date
> }
> ================================================== ===========
> The date will be in either m/d/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy format.
> Here is the problem. I need to display this date on the page
> in "long" format - i.e. January 5, 2005 instead of 1/5/2005 or
> 01/05/2005.
>
> I have tried to use the date() function, however I can only get the
> formatting to work
> with the current date and not with an 'existing' date.
>
> date("d.m.Y", $mydate); // this does not work, I get a date from
> 1969...
>
> Any advise would be greatly appreciated!
>
> JC

Hi,

advise is simple: RTFM.
Or more friendly: Your answer can be found if you actually read the
functiondefinition at www.php.net.

Here is a part:
date

(PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)
date -- Format a local time/date
Description
string date ( string format [, int timestamp] )

Returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the
given integer timestamp or the current local time if no timestamp is given.
In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time().

So what timestamp did you excactly give?
A timestamp is NOT string that represents a date, but a number.

What you need (from the same page at www.php.net) is a function to make a
timestamp from a stringrepresentation of a date. That function is called
strtotime().

Look it up. :-)

Good luck.

Regards,
Erwin Moller

Erwin Moller wrote:

> johndcal@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Hello All,
>>
>> I have a date value that I pull from a .csv file.
>> After reading the file and storing the values in an array the value of
>> the date could
>> be found in $array[1], for example.
>> ================================================== ===========
>> while (($data = fgetcsv($handle,5000, ",")) !== FALSE) {
>> $mydate = $data[3]; // here is the array value that holds the date
>> }
>> ================================================== ===========
>> The date will be in either m/d/yyyy or mm/dd/yyyy format.
>> Here is the problem. I need to display this date on the page
>> in "long" format - i.e. January 5, 2005 instead of 1/5/2005 or
>> 01/05/2005.
>>
>> I have tried to use the date() function, however I can only get the
>> formatting to work
>> with the current date and not with an 'existing' date.
>>
>> date("d.m.Y", $mydate); // this does not work, I get a date from
>> 1969...
>>
>> Any advise would be greatly appreciated!
>>
>> JC
>
> Hi,
>
> advise is simple: RTFM.
> Or more friendly: Your answer can be found if you actually read the
> functiondefinition at www.php.net.
>
> Here is a part:
> date
>
> (PHP 3, PHP 4, PHP 5)
> date -- Format a local time/date
> Description
> string date ( string format [, int timestamp] )
>
> Returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the
> given integer timestamp or the current local time if no timestamp is
> given. In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of
> time().
>
> So what timestamp did you excactly give?
> A timestamp is NOT string that represents a date, but a number.
>
> What you need (from the same page at www.php.net) is a function to make a
> timestamp from a stringrepresentation of a date. That function is called
> strtotime().
>
> Look it up. :-)
>
> Good luck.
>
> Regards,
> Erwin Moller

The route I take with date formatting from the mm/dd/yyyy or dd/mm/yyyy
formats is generally:

list($month,$day,$year)=explode("/",$mydate);
echo(date("F jS, Y",mktime(0,0,0,$month,$day,$year)));

Kevin