UBB.Developers Forums UBB.threads 7 Development How Do I? Stored dates

I'm just trying to figure out how W3T stores its dates in the database. What I am really wanting is to be able to post backdated messages - I don't mind altering the database itself but trying to figure out what the new 9 digit date stamp string should be is exercising my tiny brain a little.

Also I'd like to hack w3tnews.php so that it can display a date format of 'Dayword, nth Monthword fourdigityear' but simply using gmdate() will not work as it needs a php timestamp format, so having an algorithm to convert the stored value to that would be useful.

TIA

Jock

i think it is in seconds, seconds from 1982 or something when php was invented.

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I got the impression that the date/time string I was referring to was specific to w3t and not php. I am only just getting to grips with php, but looking through the various date and time functions I don't get the impression that they match the w3t format.

I think I had worked out that it's in seconds, but can't work out quite how to calculate it back to its origin in order to come up with a workable algorithm for manipulating it.

If I could even find where in w3t it is first stored I could maybe work it out. If it is as simple as using a standard php function on it that would be great, but I can't work out which one...:-)

The dates or stored in seconds since the epoch. The dates are retrieved via the php time() function, and converted back by using the date function like this:

$realdate = date("/m/d/y h:i A", $time);

Where $time is the date that is being converted, in seconds.

Thanks both - I will try it out.

Jock

Actually thinking about it, that only answers one side of the equation, and perhaps I shouldn't expect people to do all my work for me..:-), but what I am looking for is a method of taking an 'English' date/time and converting it to the php date/time stamp string. I think, though I haven't looked through <i>every</i> single piece of code so may have missed one, that the w3t system only ever converts a system date/time to a php time and a stored php date/time string back to a human readable date/time.

To hack a 'backdated' posting I need to be able to take a human readable date/time and convert it to a php date/time string for storage. Any ideas? I needn't be fussy about formats at the moment as it would only be an administrator that can put in the backdated stuff - it's basically to do with inputting historical data so that it appears in the right order - press releases that need to display the applicable release date and be sorted in the database according to that date.

Jock

You are correct, I only convert from a datestamp to a date. To go the other direction you will want to check out this php function. It will take just about any date format and return a unix timestamp.

Excellent - thanks Scream. It's not in the PHP book I'm relying on, and though I do try to check php.net I had not sussed that one out. Looks promising.

Jock