convert php date to mysql format

Question

$date = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['intake_date']);

1. If your MySQL column is DATE type:

$date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime(str_replace('-', '/', $date)));

2. If your MySQL column is DATETIME type:

$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime(str_replace('-', '/', $date)));

You haven't got to work strototime(), because it will not work with dash - separators, it will try to do a subtraction.

---

Update, the way your date is formatted you can't use strtotime(), use this code instead:

$date = '02/07/2009 00:07:00';
$date = preg_replace('#(\d{2})/(\d{2})/(\d{4})\s(.*)#', '$3-$2-$1 $4', $date);
echo $date;

Output:

2009-07-02 00:07:00

This site has two pretty simple solutions - just check the code, I provided the descriptions in case you wanted them - saves you some clicks.

http://www.richardlord.net/blog/dates-in-php-and-mysql

1.One common solution is to store the dates in DATETIME fields and use PHPs date() and strtotime() functions to convert between PHP timestamps and MySQL DATETIMEs. The methods would be used as follows -

$mysqldate = date( 'Y-m-d H:i:s', $phpdate );
$phpdate = strtotime( $mysqldate );

2.Our second option is to let MySQL do the work. MySQL has functions we can use to convert the data at the point where we access the database. UNIX_TIMESTAMP will convert from DATETIME to PHP timestamp and FROM_UNIXTIME will convert from PHP timestamp to DATETIME. The methods are used within the SQL query. So we insert and update dates using queries like this -

$query = "UPDATE table SET
    datetimefield = FROM_UNIXTIME($phpdate)
    WHERE...";
$query = "SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(datetimefield)
    FROM table WHERE...";

You are looking for the the MySQL functions FROM_UNIXTIME() and UNIX_TIMESTAMP().

Use them in your SQL, e.g.:

mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW());
+-----------------------+
| UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) |
+-----------------------+
|            1311343579 |
+-----------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(1311343579);
+---------------------------+
| FROM_UNIXTIME(1311343579) |
+---------------------------+
| 2011-07-22 15:06:19       |
+---------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

If intake_date is some common date format you can use date() and strtotime()

$mysqlDate = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime($_POST['intake_date']));

However, this will only work if the date format is accepted by strtotime(). See it's doc page for supported formats.

Where you have a posted date in format dd/mm/yyyy, use the below:

$date = explode('/', $_POST['posted_date']);
$new_date = $date[2].'-'.$date[1].'-'.$date[0];

If you have it in mm/dd/yyyy, just change the second line:

$new_date = $date[2].'-'.$date[0].'-'.$date[1];

PHP 5.3 has functions to create and reformat at DateTime object from whatever format you specify:

$mysql_date = "2012-01-02";   // date in Y-m-d format as MySQL stores it
$date_obj = date_create_from_format('Y-m-d',$mysql_date);
$date = date_format($date_obj, 'm/d/Y');
echo $date;

Outputs:

01/02/2012

MySQL can also control the formatting by using the STR_TO_DATE() function when inserting/updating, and the DATE_FORMAT() when querying.

$php_date = "01/02/2012";
$update_query = "UPDATE `appointments` SET `start_time` = STR_TO_DATE('" . $php_date . "', '%m/%d/%Y')";
$query = "SELECT DATE_FORMAT(`start_time`,'%m/%d/%Y') AS `start_time` FROM `appointments`";