why am I getting '4:00' when I'm trying to display time using the date function with php?

Question

I am trying to display a time I have in my database. I managed to have it display a time in the correct format for what I need, but for some reason, it is only displaying '4:00' every time.

Here is my code:

date('g:i', strtotime($row['startTime']))

An example of I have the time displayed in my database is like this: 00:12:30

Why is it showing '4:00' every time?

Answer 1

Whats the underlying database, and what datatype does the startTime column have? Peering at the closest php code I have, strtoime works fine with a DATETIME representation in the DB (MySQL).

Answer 2

strtotime converts a date time string to a Unix timestamp.

Perhaps your $row['startTime'] doesn't qualify as a date time string.

None of the examples here discussed a date time string which did not include a date.

The link also said that if strtotime is confused, it returns random results. I would add a few more format characters and see what else is returned.

Answer 3

strtotime expects a datetime format ... you should do

date('g:i', strtotime('01 January 2009 ' . $row['startTime']))

Answer 4

As noted the problem is the use of strtotime(). The following works on my machine, if it's of any use:

 $date_text = $row['startTime']; // assuming the format "00:12:30"
 list($hrs,$mins,$secs) = explode(":",$date_text); // in response to the question in the comments
 /* the explode() takes the string "00:12:30" and breaks into three components "00","12" and "30".
 these components are named, by their order in the array formed by explode(), as $hrs, $mins and $secs.
see: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.explode.php
and: http://us3.php.net/manual/en/function.list.php
 */

 echo "<p>" . date("g:i",mktime($hrs,$mins,$secs)) . "</p>";