date issue with PHP 4.4.8 - php

Question

Last week a released a 2.0 beta version of my Events Manager plugin, which produces a list of events. Among the many bugs floating around, there is one I cannot fix. The bug seems to manifest itself only on a tester's server with PHP 4.4.8; works allright on PHP 5.
When I try to use the H:i php time format, I always get midnight (00:00).
The issue is with the wordpress function mysql2date. This function is a wrapper around the date function.
I isolated the problem and inserted this in the website template:
echo (mysql2date("H:i", "0000-00-00 13:24:00"));
The result was
00:00
At first I thought it was a wordpress bug, but then I rewrote my function to employ date() straightaway. The result was even stranger, instead of midnight I got 11:59.
Quite strangerly, both mysql2date and date seem to work allright on every other part of the plugin. Also, as I said, I cannot reproduce the bug on my server, only 2 users signalled it.
Since I was asked, here's the mysql2date code; it's part of Wordpress:
/**
* Converts MySQL DATETIME field to user specified date format.
*
* If $dateformatstring has 'G' value, then gmmktime() function will be used to
* make the time. If $dateformatstring is set to 'U', then mktime() function
* will be used to make the time.
*
* The $translate will only be used, if it is set to true and it is by default
* and if the $wp_locale object has the month and weekday set.
*
* #since 0.71
*
* #param string $dateformatstring Either 'G', 'U', or php date format.
* #param string $mysqlstring Time from mysql DATETIME field.
* #param bool $translate Optional. Default is true. Will switch format to locale.
* #return string Date formated by $dateformatstring or locale (if available).
*/
function mysql2date( $dateformatstring, $mysqlstring, $translate = true ) {
global $wp_locale;
$m = $mysqlstring;
if ( empty( $m ) )
return false;
if( 'G' == $dateformatstring ) {
return gmmktime(
(int) substr( $m, 11, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 14, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 17, 2 ),
(int) substr( $m, 5, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 8, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 0, 4 )
);
}
$i = mktime(
(int) substr( $m, 11, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 14, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 17, 2 ),
(int) substr( $m, 5, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 8, 2 ), (int) substr( $m, 0, 4 )
);
if( 'U' == $dateformatstring )
return $i;
if ( -1 == $i || false == $i )
$i = 0;
if ( !empty( $wp_locale->month ) && !empty( $wp_locale->weekday ) && $translate ) {
$datemonth = $wp_locale->get_month( date( 'm', $i ) );
$datemonth_abbrev = $wp_locale->get_month_abbrev( $datemonth );
$dateweekday = $wp_locale->get_weekday( date( 'w', $i ) );
$dateweekday_abbrev = $wp_locale->get_weekday_abbrev( $dateweekday );
$datemeridiem = $wp_locale->get_meridiem( date( 'a', $i ) );
$datemeridiem_capital = $wp_locale->get_meridiem( date( 'A', $i ) );
$dateformatstring = ' ' . $dateformatstring;
$dateformatstring = preg_replace( "/([^\\\])D/", "\\1" . backslashit( $dateweekday_abbrev ), $dateformatstring );
$dateformatstring = preg_replace( "/([^\\\])F/", "\\1" . backslashit( $datemonth ), $dateformatstring );
$dateformatstring = preg_replace( "/([^\\\])l/", "\\1" . backslashit( $dateweekday ), $dateformatstring );
$dateformatstring = preg_replace( "/([^\\\])M/", "\\1" . backslashit( $datemonth_abbrev ), $dateformatstring );
$dateformatstring = preg_replace( "/([^\\\])a/", "\\1" . backslashit( $datemeridiem ), $dateformatstring );
$dateformatstring = preg_replace( "/([^\\\])A/", "\\1" . backslashit( $datemeridiem_capital ), $dateformatstring );
$dateformatstring = substr( $dateformatstring, 1, strlen( $dateformatstring ) -1 );
}
$j = #date( $dateformatstring, $i );
/*
if ( !$j ) // for debug purposes
echo $i." ".$mysqlstring;
*/
return $j;
}
If you're interested, you can download the code of my plugin here, the problem is on line 613 of events-manager.php.
Can this have something to do with PHP or apache settings?
Thanks in advance for any suggestion.
Davide

Answer 1

Not a fix, but an alternative - use UNIX_TIMESTAMP in your mysql statement instead of converting it afterwards.
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(date_created) AS date

Answer 2

I guess I have solved this issue. The problem was 0000-00-00, apparently not a valid time mysql2date value in some PHP/MySql combos (quite understandably, I am looking at you, month 00...) . I ended up using echo (mysql2date("H:i", "2000-10-10 13:24:00"));
Since I am just interested in the hours and minute a more casual date does the job. Problem solved.