Date conversion from db to display

Question

I'm reading a datetime field from mysql db. I'd like to convert it in PHP:

from: 2009-05-23 14:46:23

to 05/23/2009 02:46 pm

Notice the am/pm conversion.

Thanks in advance..

Answer 1

// assume you retrieve the mysql date in variable $date
date("m/d/Y h:i a", strtotime($date));

Answer 2

Call me old fashioned. I store all dates as epoch, and if I will ever go outside my timezone, as epoch of UTC of the date.

Epoch is seconds since Jan 1st, 1970 or something like that.

Known in MySQL as Unixtime. FROM_UNIXTIME(), etc..

$epoch = strtotime($mdate);

You can also store dates directly in MySQL with data type DATETIME if you are so inclined. Your chosen format is a drop in replacement actually.

Answer 3

Depending on the type that's return by your db code, you can create a new DateTime object or format an existing one with date_format(). From the example you give, the date format string should be "m/d/Y h:i a". Note that the conversion from 24h to 12h is handled in either case.

Have a look at the format options for DateTime:date() and DateTime:format() (date_format is an alias for this)