Store a user-input date string as datetime - php

Question

I'm using php, and need to parse a date string formatted as dd/mm/yyyy and store it in MySql.
How can I convert the string to a datetime variable in a MySql table?

Answer 1

Probably the best way would be using this: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_str-to-date
SELECT STR_TO_DATE('04/31/2004', '%m/%d/%Y');
-> '2004-04-31'
Or equivalent PHP functions like:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date-parse-from-format.php (from PHP 5.3)
A generic PHP function would look like
function convertDate($dateString) {
return date('Y-m-d H:i:s',strtotime(str_replace('/','-',$dateString)));
}
or
function convertDate($dateString) {
$a = explode($dateString('/'));
return "{$a[2]}-{$a[1]}-{$a[0]} 00:00:00";
}

Answer 2

First of all you should store a configuration for the required format date, maybe something like this:
Knowing that the ISO_DATE FORMAT is "Y-m-d"
You must save the output configuration somehow, at least the separator.
If you know the separator and you know the format into which the date is entered than you can validate it using checkdate(), and also transform it into the ISO standard by exploding the values by the predefined separator.
I have a validation object that tells me if a field is of a certain type (String,Date,Datetime,Integer,Float) then formats the parameters sent to SQL :
as an example, let's say i get this array from my html form into PHP:
$_POST["DATA"] = array("name"=>"Koko bongo","age"=>12,"graduation_date"=>"12/06/1986");
and we define a validation array, like this:
$validator= array("name"=>"string","age"=>"integer","graduation_date"=>"date");
I have a configuration for each table which makes this automated but you can do it customly inplace by having an evalAndFormatType function that works like this
function evalAndFormatType($value,$type) {
switch strtolower($type) {
case "integer":
$item = is_numeric($value) && !strstr($value,DECIMAL_SEPARATOR) ? intval($item) :false;
break;
case "Date":/*we suppose that somehow we now the order, how you do it it is your decision: configuration array,constants etc*/
$check = explode(DATE_SEPARATOR,$value);
$item = sizeof($check) == 3 && checkdate(intval($check[1]),intval($check[0]),intval($check[2])) ? $check[2]."-".$check[1]."-".$check[0] : false;
break;
default:
throw Exception("Unknown type ".$type);
break;
}
return $item;
}
now, in your code you can say
$_DATA = $_POST["DATA"]; // the previously defined array
$errMsg = array();
foreach($_DATA as $k=>$v) {
$_DATA[$k] = evalAndFormat($v,$validator[$k]);
if($_DATA[$k] === false) {
$errMsg[$k] = "requires type ".$validator[$k];
}
}
if(empty($errMsg)){
$sql= ....WHATEVER USING THE INFO
} else {
return $errMsg;
/*this can be used to show errors nicely near your text boxes by parsing the expected keys or sending it by JSON etc
or
you could create a string out of it by using locale data that you might have which could output something like
Required fields: Graduation date[invalid type],Name,Age ... etc
"/
I hope this answers your question and also explains my "strange" approach on it.
}