I am using DATETIME as a column type and using NOW() to insert. When it prints out, it is three hours behind. What can I do so it works three hours ahead to EST time?
I am using php date to format the DATETIME on my page.
If the date stored in your database by using NOW() is incorrect, then you need to change your MySQL server settings to the correct timezone. If it's only incorrect once you print it, you need to modify your php script to use the correct timezone.
Edit:
Refer to W3schools' convenient php date overview for information on how to format the date using date().
Edit 2:
Either you get GoDaddy to change the setting (doubtful), or you add 3 hours when you insert into the table. Refer to the MySQL date add function to modify your date when you set it in the table. Something like date_add(now(), interval 3 hour) should work.
Your exact problem is described here.
Give gmdate() and gmmktime() a look. I find timestamp arithmetic much easier if you use GMT, especially if your code runs on multiple machines, or modifying MySQL server settings isn't an option, or you end up dealing with different timezones, day light savings, etc.
I would suggest inserting the date in UTC time zone. This will save you a lot of headache in the future (Daylight saving problems etc...)
"INSERT INTO abc_table (registrationtime) VALUES (UTC_TIMESTAMP())"
When I query my data I use the following PHP script
<? while($row = mysql_fetch_array($registration)){
$dt_obj = new DateTime($row['message_sent_timestamp']." UTC");
$dt_obj->setTimezone(new DateTimeZone('Europe/Istanbul'));
echo $formatted_date_long=date_format($dt_obj, 'Y-m-d H:i:s'); } ?>
You can replace the datetimezone value with one of the available php timezones here:
Related
I am facing a problem with unix timestamps, php and mysql and would be great if somebody could explain to me where I am going wrong or if I am not then why I am getting the figures that I am getting.
When I use jquery datepicker to pass the date in year-month-date format to php the hour and minutes have been set by default of 23:00:00 in the timestamp even though I am not passing this infromation in the request. So my question is where is this phantom 23:00:00 appearing from?
Workflow:
Using datepicker: datepicker -> php -> mysql = TIMESTAMP which has time set at 23:00:00.
Without using datepicker: php->mysql = TIMESTAMP with the correct hour and minutes.
Thanks for reading.
EDIT: PHP code as requested:
PHP code:
$setdatealpha = $_POST['datepickeralpha'];
$setdatealpha = strtotime($setdatealpha);
// With this, I am inserting into MySQL like so:
$sql = "INSERT INTO TABLE (DATE_FIELD) VALUES (?)";
$stmt = $mysqli->prepare($sql);
$stmt->bind_param('s',$setdatealpha);
$stmt->execute();
Now when I read the entered information back and convert it to date time format via date('Y-m-d',timestamp), the date entry correct and the time entry has the 23:00:00 value.
This does not occur if I do a standard converstion via strtotime (date);
Based off of the information currently available, I would suggest that you make sure each timestamp is in UTC. I always run into timezone issues.
For PHP, like: $current_timestamp = strtotime($date." UTC");
For jQuery datepicker I found this stackoverflow thread: How to obtain utc time in jQuery datetimepicker
Most likely, time zone.
First of all, let's clarify the context. strtotime() produces a Unix timestamp, which you apparently feed DATE_FIELD with. If that works, it means that the column is an INTEGER. In the case, you're doing something afterwards to display the date and you haven't shared that part—also, MySQL is innocent here because it doesn't even know what DATE_FIELD is meant to be date.
While strtotime() can be fed with a raw date, it needs to generate time as well. It can't do it unless it knows the time zone. Additionally, when you have an integer variable with a Unix timestamp and you want to display it as proper date you also need to know the time zone.
In both cases, if you don't provide it PHP will use a default value:
var_dump(date_default_timezone_get());
So you'll possibly want to set a known one with e.g. date_default_timezone_set(). However, your users may have a different time zone than you so yours would be meaningless to them. Since you prompt the user for a raw date (without time) it's possible that time is actually not relevant to the question. In such case, you may want to:
Make DATE_FIELD of DATE type.
Avoid strtotime() and similar stuff. You may want to use checkdate() instead.
I have an application that posts to an PHP script, I want the PHP script to basically grab the current time and date, and insert it into my SQL database.
I'm currently doing this by using '$time()' within PHP, and then passing that into my SQL DB. In order to retrieve the time and date back, I use 'gmdate("M d Y H:i:s", $time);'.
I have a few questions though:
When I test this, the time it saves is an hour behind, so how do I apply different time zones? (I'm currently London/England) - but that might not be the case for the user who use this application.
Where is PHP retrieving the time from? Is it local? From the server?
Within my SQL, what should I set the data type to be? Timestamp? Currently, I've set it to varchar - but with all these different date and time types, I'm not so sure? (Date, Datetime, Time, Timestamp).
This PHP is called every time the user opens the application, so I want to be able to see: 'ah, so I see this user opened the application up at 21:20 on Wednesday the 14th'.
I'm sorry if its a noob question, but theres so many time and date classes and functions for both PHP and SQL that my brain has over loaded!
For a start, PHP time gets it's time from the server it's running on.
But if you really want the time a record was inserted, you should do one of the following:
Create a field in the table of type datetime, and set the default to:
GETDATE()
This will set the time automatically without you having to do anything special.
If you need that at time of input, still use SQL:
update [tablename] set LastUpdate=GETDATE()
Doing it this way ensures that the time is exactly when the record was set.
The PHP Time() function returns the EPOCH time (Seconds since January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT).
You can use date_default_timezone_set() along with strftime() or mktime() to convert this to the servers local time.
You could set this via your application for the user if they're in a different timezone.
I linked the PHP manual pages for each function listed above.
What about to create a DateTime Field on MySQL table Structure and use MySQL to grab and set the date with NOW()?. Let MySQL do most calculations, it will help you to optimize the response time of your PHP script.
Look into this example: http://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_now.asp
Following the example of that page, but for an UPDATE:
UPDATE orders set OrderDate=NOW() WHERE OrderId=9999
Setting Timezone will fix the issue. I guess.
$date = date_create('2000-01-01', timezone_open('Pacific/Nauru'));
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";
date_timezone_set($date, timezone_open('Pacific/Chatham'));
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d H:i:sP') . "\n";
I store times in MySQL sent from a PHP script as CURRENT_TIMESTAMP. This makes times from the wrong timezone, minus 1 hour from where I am. I'm not superuser, so SET GLOBAL time_zone = 'Europe/London'; won't work. Is there anyway I can modify the input or output query to compensate 1 hour?
This is my current sql query, sent from a form:
REPLACE INTO `order_admin_message` (`order_id`, `message`, `date_updated`)
VALUES ('$number', '$msg', CURRENT_TIMESTAMP)
And then I retreive it using:
SELECT order_admin_message.message, order_admin_message.date_updated
FROM order_admin_message
WHERE order_admin_message.order_id = $number
EDIT: To be clear, I don't want to show the user's time, just local London time (taking daylight saving into account in summer).
EDIT 2: Changed the subject to be closer to the question/answer.
In PHP, just change it for your display. Don't store locale dependent dates or times in a database. Makes conversion later on, a PITA. Just display the time/timezone you need even if you don't care about the user.
$tz = new DateTimeZone('Europe/London');
$datetime_updated = new DateTime($results['order_admin_message.date_updated']);
$datetime_updated->setTimezone($tz);
$display_date = $datetime_updated->format("M j, Y g:i A");
echo $display_date;
Use utc_timestamp instead, and convert to the timezone of the user yourself.
UTC_TIMESTAMP is the current UTC date and time, as recognised all over the world.
As long as you know where your user is and what his timezone is, you can convert it by adding the correct offset.
If you don't know what the user's desired timezone is, then you have a different problem - basically you need to find out somehow.
Use the CONVERT_TZ() function:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_convert-tz
For a while I had been using a raw MySQL NOW() function to record the time/date in my MySQL DB until I realized the host's timezone variable was three hours ahead of PST. I've fixed this using DATE_SUB(NOW(), INTERVAL 3 HOUR), but now I have a ton of timestamps that are three hours ahead, and all future timestamps that are the showing the correct time.
Is there a PHP function to evaluate timestamps recorded before I made the fix so I can offset them when they display in my admin utility?
For example:
if($timestamp < 2012-02-16 21:57:18) {
$timestamp - 3 hours;
}
New Timestamp (offset by 3 hours behind)
$timestamp = date('Y-m-d H:i:s',strtotime($row['timestamp_column_name'])-(3*60*60));
Create a second column in your table (perhaps?) and store the offset time - perhaps call it the admin time OR store the admin time offset from the system's time OR you can set the timezone PHP should use using something like the options mentioned here: PHP timezone not set .
the magical function strtotime does all the work for you. seriously check it out for adding, manipulating and even reading human readable forms of dates. Then the date function is good for formatting it back into any form.
For many input formats, strtotime is the way to go. However, its heuristical approach may lead to surprising results, so if you only want to parse a specific format, use strptime.
I have built a small forum where users can post messages. My server is in the United States, but the userbase for the forum is in Taiwan (+15hrs).
When someone posts to the form, I store the time in my mySQL database in the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. When I look in the database, the time displays the proper time (the time that the person in Taiwan posted it).
However, when I use UNIX_TIMESTAMP to get the date out of the database, the time is altered.
Example:
I post something to the forum. The datetime on my wrist watch is 2009-10-2 11:24am (Taiwan Time)
I look in the database and it says the datetime is 2009-10-2 11:24am (same time as my wrist watch. good!)
Then when I use UNIX_TIMESTAMP to display the date on my website, it shows as 2009-10-03 4:22 pm (bad! it applied an offset)
Is there a way I can get UNIX_TIMESTAMP to stop converting the time (applying an offset) when I query the date from the database?
Extra Info:
I'm using PHP
I have set the timezone in my PHP to Taiwan (date.timezone = Asia/Taipei)
If a user is in another timezone than Taiwan, I want it to convert the time to Taipei time. The site is nearly 100% Taiwan used so I just want Taiwan time to show all the time even if they're in another timezone.
I display the date in lots of areas around the site in different date() formats.
Basically everything works great except that when I use UNIX_TIMESTAMP to query the data out, it applies an offset to the time.
Thanks!
MySQL writes dates "as-is", also reads them so, but UNIX_TIMESTAMP treats any input dates as in your local timezone and converts them to UTC/GMT timestamps meaning it will apply your local timezone offset, now if you process your timestamps returned from mysql via eg. php date() it will again apply your local timezone offset(note there is also gmtime() which does not do that), which will produce unwanted results.
But you can get by with this following trick which will subtract your session timezone before UNIX_TIMESTAMP() applies it, so you will get the exact number regardless of the server/local timezone if you want the exact same date in db as if it were a GMT time.
mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CONVERT_TZ("2013-05-27","GMT",##session.time_zone));
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CONVERT_TZ("2013-05-27","GMT",##session.time_zone)) |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| 1369612800 |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)
Another solution would be to set the servers or session timezone to 0(GMT), so there will be no real conversions taking place.
MySQL takes system's default timezone setting unless told otherwise, it explains the problems you are having; take a look at MySQL's time zone reference manual for more details. Based on my past experience I've come to a conclusion UTC is the best choice for storing date and time; when displaying it to the user, they are converted to user's timezone.
If possible, change all date and time entries in the DB to UTC, configure timezone in PHP usingdate_default_timezone_set()and make sure to convert it properly when rendering it to the user and when storing it in the database as well. If storing UTC values is not an option, you may simply convert them by following time zone reference guide the same way as with UTC.
What you need to do is grab raw date and time from the database and then use PHP's DateTime to convert it. Take a look at DateTimeZone as well.
The best that I have found to this problem is using this:
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CONVERT_TZ(<<>>,'+15:00','+00:00')) +TIMESTAMPDIFF(second,utc_timestamp(), now())
Example: I want to get the timestamp of 31-may-2012 at 23:59:59, Local time.
SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(CONVERT_TZ('2012-05-31 23:59:59','+15:00','+00:00')) +TIMESTAMPDIFF(second,utc_timestamp(), now())
This way I get the timestamp GMT-0, corresponding to the localtime.
I have found a possible solution which is to just retrieve the date from the database without converting it to Unix time, and then just using strtotime(); to convert it to Unix time. Basically instead of converting using sql, i'm converting using php. The only things I don't like about it are: strtotime() < I'm not sure how reliable this function is, and I have to go and change about 100 places where i'm using UNIX_TIMESTAMP (doh!)
Are there any other ways?