I’m always finding myself looking up strings to format PHP and MySQL dates. A simple d/m/Y is pretty straight forward but sometimes things can get a bit fiddly. Where ever possible I try and leave my date formatting in the database, but I still find myself doing it in PHP all the time.
Here are a few simple cut and paste date formats.
| PHP Date | MySQL Date | PHP Format | MySQL Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7/9/2009 | 7/9/2009 | j/n/Y | %e/%c/%Y | |
| 07/09/2009 | 07/09/2009 | d/m/Y | %d/%m/%Y | |
| 7/9/2009 8:07 | 7/9/2009 8:07 | j/n/Y G:i | %e/%c/%Y %k:%i | |
| 7/9/2009 8:07 AM | 7/9/2009 8:07 AM | j/n/Y G:i A | %e/%c/%Y %k:%i %p | |
| 07/09/2009 8:07 AM | 07/09/2009 8:07 AM | d/m/Y G:i A | %d/%m/%Y %k:%i %p | |
| 07/09/2009 08:07 AM | 07/09/2009 08:07 AM | d/m/Y H:i A | %d/%m/%Y %H:%i %p | |
| 07/09/2009 8:07 am | d/m/Y G:i a | |||
| Mon 7th Sep 2009 | Mon 7th Sep 2009 | D jS M Y | %a %D %b %Y | |
| Monday 7th September 2009 | Monday 7th September 2009 | l jS F Y | %W %D %M %Y | |
| 2009-09-07T08:07:50+01:00 | Monday 7th September 2009 | Y-m-d\TH:i:sP | %W %D %M %Y | PHP DATE_ATOM constant |
| Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:07:50 +0100 | Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:07:50 | D, d M Y H:i:s O | %a, %d %b %Y %T | PHP DATE_RSS constant |
The PHP way
echo(date('d/m/Y', strtotime('2009-09-07 08:07:50'))); //or $dateTime = new DateTime("now"); echo $dateTime->format("Y-m-d H:i:s") |
The MySQL way
$sqlstring = "SELECT DATE_FORMAT('2009-09-07 08:07:50', '%d/%m/%Y') AS formated_date FROM some_table" ; |
- http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php
- http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/date-and-time-functions.html#function_date-format
If you haven’t looked at the PHP manual closely for a while you should definitely (re)acquaint yourself with the DateTime Class.