php date format inserting wrong date

Question

I am confused as to why this piece of code does not convert a date in the UK format 00/00/0000 to mysql date format 0000-00-00. What i get in the db is 1970-01-01. It is in the date format not datetime so it should work? Thanks

$destroy = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['destroy']);
$desttempdate=str_replace("-", "/", $destroy); 
$destdate = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($desttempdate));

Answer 1

Here are a few options for you to get it working:

Something like this for PHP4:

function date2timestamp($date,$seperator='/'){
    if($date!=''){
        $dateEx = explode($seperator,$date);
        $date = (strlen($dateEx[2])==2?'20'.$dateEx[2]:$dateEx[2]).'-'.$dateEx[1].'-'.$dateEx[0].' 00:00:00';
    }
    return $date;
}

For PHP5.3 use createFromFormat():

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('j/M/Y', $UK_date);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d');

Also other options for createFromFormat() in PHP5.2 include:

• PHP createFromFormat for 5.2 version
• php dateTime::createFromFormat in 5.2?
• DateTime::createFromFormat in PHP < 5.3.0