Prepare String Date for MySQL Insert with PHP

Question

Given a date as a string like 'October 12, 2010'?

Should there be some Date "type" I should be converting to. Or is it just a matter of converting it to another string formatted as '2010-10-12' If so, what is the simplest way to convert to the yyyy-mm-dd format given my starting format?

Answer 1

Yes, DATE fields in MySQL just need to be a string in the correct format. To convert your date to the right format, use date combined with strtotime.

$date = 'October 12, 2010';
$sqlDate = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($date)); // 2010-10-12

Note: 'Y-m-d' is for a DATE field, if you're using DATETIME, use 'Y-m-d H:i:s' instead.

Answer 2

$date = new DateTime('October 12, 2010');
$sqldate = $date->format('Y-m-d');

DateTime is PHP 5 >= 5.2.0

You could also use strtotime() however that tends to break if you want to use a date in the far future (on 32b systems).