Posted by Martin on 01/15/08 02:48

On Tue, 15 Jan 2008 02:37:49 +0100, thib´ <thyb0@coralsnake-team.com>
wrote:

>Martin wrote:
>> On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:34:38 -0000, "Paul Lautman"
>> <paul.lautman@btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Martin wrote:
>>>> I'm retrieving some records from a database. One of the fields
>>>> contains a date/time. I would like to format it as I send it out to
>>>> the table in the displayed page.
>>>>
>>>> Can some one please tell me how I can/should do that? Or possibly
>>>> point me to an on-line explanation?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> ps: if it makes any difference, the data is coming from a MS Access
>>>> MDB file which I'm reading in via ODBC.
>>> It is a 6 step process:
>>>
>>> Step 1) Point your browser at www.google.com
>>> Step 2) In the search box type: php date formatting
>>> Step 3) Click the button labelled "I'm Feeling Lucky"
>>> Step 4) Read the manual page that you are presented with
>>> Step 5) Think "Why did I bother posting this question to usenet when I could
>>> have found the answer in an instant by doing steps 1-4"
>>> Step 6) Vow to do the obvious and try to help myself in the fuure.
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for the wise-ass answer Paul.
>>
>> The fact of the matter is, I already spent an hour or so Googling and
>> experimenting with various things. In fact, I tried using the exact
>> page that you so politely pointed out. But I quickly found out that
>> that page actually explains how to format the system date value. As
>> I'm sure you'll notice, if you would bother to read my question, I'm
>> trying to format a date/time string that I'm retrieving from a
>> database.
>>
>> I suggest that you re-word your step 5 to: Think "Why did I bother
>> posting this question to a usenet group where I get smart-ass answers
>> that don't do any good".
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>Well, the fact that many users come here without even having opened the man'
>might be bothering, you should consider that. Of course I agree that we're
>also here to redirect people to what they need if the request is something
>widely assumed as 'basic'; many people would just say "Google that!" whereas
>the personal glossary of the OP simply needs one or two little more entries.
>
>In your case, I guess you aren't actually searching for date formatting, but
>string formatting.
>
>http://php.net/manual/en/ref.strings.php
>
>You obviously don't need more than these native functions to do what you
>want to. If your time is really running out, I suggest you start playing
>with substr().
>
>If you feel like you need further reading, you might be interested in
>Regular Expressions.
>
>http://www.regular-expressions.info/
>http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php
>
>Despite all of that, you can also convert your date to a UNIX timestamp,
>using string functions as well as mktime(), or, as Paul pointed out, with
>strtotime() if you're confident with the source format. You'll then have no
>problem to re-format the timestamp with date().
>
>You could have put a hand on these functions by reading a little further the
>function references of "Date and Time" you should have found by following
>Paul's "directives". Yep, I felt lucky, and he was right.
>
>http://php.net/manual/en/ref.datetime.php
>
>
>"Google" vs "Direct-Help" is an everlasting debate.
>No kittens are ate anyway, so keep your cool.
>
>-thib´

Thanks, thib'

Here's what I've ended up with:

$FTS = date("m/d/y h:i:s A",strtotime(odbc_result($rs,"Date")));

I initially had played around with the date function but couldn't get
it to work with whatever format the data field is using. I then had
tried the strtotime function but didn't understand what it was
generating. All of this was before I posted my question.

Based on your initial response (and, as you've reiterated now),
combining the two gives me what I was looking for.

Thanks again.

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