PHP Forum

**jacannon2** · 06-24-2005, 09:45 AM

I have two fields in a table that I store numbers for the month and the day. How can I take those numbers and convert them to where the months are January, February, March (instead of 1, 2, 3) and the days are 12th, 23rd, 30th (instead of 12, 23, 30)?

I don't know if this matters, but the single digit numbers are stored without zeros in front of them.

I know that this is possible with the date function, but I was wondering if there was any way of taking a number and doing the same thing that the date function does.

Thanks,
J2

**desertland** · 06-24-2005, 10:53 AM

This is the reason you should be using date fields to store date/time values. ...but regardless, you can fake it

Try this:

select date_format('2005-04-01', '%M');

That will return 'April'

So will:
select date_format(concat('2005-', '04', '-01'), '%M');

All you need to do is change the '04' to the column that stores our month number.

**metho** · 06-24-2005, 07:09 PM

Dude - do yourself a favour and invest the time in rewriting your scripts to use date() and combine your database table colums to a single column using the date data type. Like desertland says - that's what they're there for!

**jacannon2** · 06-25-2005, 09:51 AM

Yeah, I have a date field in my table, but I wasn't sure how to use each part of the date separately in my script. Maybe ya'll can help me...

Code:

<?php
$query2 = mysql_query("SELECT Name, month, day, year FROM birthdays WHERE month > $month ORDER BY month, day")

or die("Query2 failed:<br>" . mysql_error());

while($row = mysql_fetch_assoc($query2)) {
	extract($row);
	$thisyear = date("Y");	$age = ($thisyear - $year);
	$date = ("$month-$day-$thisyear");?>
	<item>	
	<title><?print ("$Name turns $age");?></title>
	<description><?print ("on $date");?></description>
	</item>
<?php}?>

This is part of my script. I have a day, month, year, and date field in my table. The date has the right type, but like I said, I don't know how to extract each separate number so I can use it like I need to.

Also, I didn't code all of this myself. I'm a newbie when it comes to working with databases. I just learned PHP as well and I pretty much tweaked the script when I got it so it would work the way I wanted it to.

If this isn't enough info to help me, just let me know. I had already wanted to do what ya'll are saying to do, but like I said, I'm new at this and didn't know how.

Thanks. -J2

**metho** · 06-25-2005, 07:40 PM

here's an example of how to separate the date elements from a date stored in the format 1970:01:01;

PHP Code:


			
<?php

// retrieve the date from the database column and place in var

// this example will just use a fresh date

// ensure you know how the dates are formatted in mySql i.e. Y:m:d



$thisDate = date('Y:m:d');



// assign the values to vars using list() and splitting the date string by the spearating char



list( $thisYear, $thisMonth, $thisDay ) = split(':', $thisDate);



?> 

<html>

<head>

<title>Extracting Date Elements</title>

</head>

<body>

<h1>The date retrieved is: <?php echo $thisDate ; ?></h1>

<p>It's Day element is: <?php echo $thisDay ; ?></p>

<p>It's Month element is: <?php echo $thisMonth ; ?></p>

<p>It's Year element is: <?php echo $thisYear ; ?></p>

</body>

</html>