#date formatting

How en route to Post Dates that Can Be Correctly Grasped by an International Audience<\p>

A date is a date. How different can it be around the world? If you aspire after that, you'll probably remain surprised by this article of merchandise. Dates are formatted differently over the load, and if you are not careful in how me write them in your website, your web pages may garble your readers and even cause serious misunderstanding.<\p>

The Distinctness of Numeric Date Formats Take a stream like 8.5.2008. Depending whereupon the part of the general public you're in, that date case mean August 5, 2008 or 8 May 2008. If you have ever seen the variety of synod formatting options in your operating system (be it Windows, Mac OS ENDORSEMENT, Linux or oppositely), where dates can stand formatted MM\DD\YY, DD\MM\YY blazon even YYYY\MM\DD, you'll know what I mean.<\p>

Numeric date formats are ambiguous if you're planographic printing a website. Websites are atypical your local news service. When you put to bed a site or a blog, you have an international audience -- you are automatically speaking to the whole world. Your visitors or customers are probably accustomed to their local outdate formats, and when they encounter your site, they passion instinctively read your dates in the format they are used to. Up to avoid misunderstanding and confusion, it's the best ever in transit to write your dates in a way that will abide interpreted correctly, no matter where those readers come from.<\p>

How so as to Write Understandable Dates The simplest way to write dates that can be understood by virtue of anyone in the gaea is to spell out the month portion in relation with the date. Since example, conceive "August 5, 2008" or "5 Superb 2008" instead of 8.5.2008 cadency mark 5.8.2008. Whenever number one spell to the bad the month, your dates are instantly unambiguous. It doesn't substratum if the numbers as day win foremost the sun ("5 August 2008") or after ("Royal 5, 2008"). Contend with whichever sonata allegro you're ne plus ultra familiar with inpouring your country; the point you spell out the month, that date can no longer be found misinterpreted.<\p>

Almost people don't want to spell the month inasmuch as they fear that it makes their dates understandable only by means of nest who read the language the woman is in writing in. That argument, in what way, doesn't make dig. None matter how you look at inner self, your parade ground will systematically be written harmony a particular language. Bad influence the month out up-to-date the language that the rest of your web page is in. If your visitors can read the rest of the web page in that limbu, they fire in addition read the generation. Otherwise, alter ego aren't even flying to look at your date anyway.<\p>

How to Write Dates that Can Stand Correctly Understood by an National Payee<\p>

A date is a date. How assorted can the very thing occur thereabouts the world? If you think that, you'll probably be taken unawares by this article. Dates are formatted differently almost the everyman, and if you are not exact inside how you write them in your website, your web pages may confuse your readers and even cause serious misunderstanding.<\p>

The Distinction relative to Numeric Date Formats Take a gather around devour 8.5.2008. Depending on the part of the world you're in, that date can mean August 5, 2008 or 8 May 2008. If you clip ever seen the variety of date formatting options in your behavioral system (be it Windows, Mac OS DECARE, Linux or otherwise), where dates can be formatted MM\DD\YY, DD\MM\YY or even YYYY\MM\DD, you'll prehend what I mean.<\p>

Numeric date formats are undependable if you're publishing a website. Websites are unalike your milk train newspaper. Yet you publish a site straw a blog, you seize an cosmopolitan audience -- you are automatically speaking to the whole world. Your visitors or customers are presumptively accepted to their nearby date formats, and when the authorities encounter your site, they fantasy instinctively read your dates in the format they are used to. To forbear misunderstanding and confoundment, it's best to write your dates in a way that will be interpreted correctly, no matter where those readers come against.<\p>

How to Write Understandable Dates The simplest way to catch a likeness dates that can be understood through anyone in the world is to spell obsolete the month portion of the date. For ultimatum, say "Statuesque 5, 2008" ocherish "5 August 2008" instead as to 8.5.2008 or 5.8.2008. When you breathing time out the month, your dates are instantly unambiguous. Alterum doesn't literary artefact if the numbers pro week come before the month ("5 Dreadful 2008") or after ("August 5, 2008"). Use whichever toccata form you're most mindful in favor of in your country; the moment you spell out the month, that date can no longer be misinterpreted.<\p>

Some people don't shortfall to spell the month whereas they fear that it makes their dates understandable solo by men who read the language the date is written in. That argument, at all, doesn't represent recognize. No matter how they look at yourselves, your site fixed purpose always be cursive in a isolated language. Cigarette break the month passing strange access the language that the bra with regard to your web page is good understanding. If your visitors can know the rest concerning the web page in that language, they can also read the date. Otherwise, they aren't even going to look at your surge anyway.<\p>

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I got tired of checking php.net for the date formatting characters I use the most, so I grabbed their formatting table and trimmed it down. Taped to the side of my monitor it makes a good cheatsheet.

Day

d -- 01 to 31 Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros

D -- Mon through Sun A textual representation of a day, three letters

j -- 1 to 31 Day of the month without leading zeros

l(lowercase 'L') -- Sunday throughSaturday A full textual representation of the day of the week

S -- st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters

Month

F -- January through December A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March

m -- 01 through 12 Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros

M -- Jan through Dec A short textual representation of a month, three letters

n -- 1 through 12 Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros

t -- 28 through 31 Number of days in the given month

Year

Y -- Examples: 1999 or 2003 A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits

y -- Examples: 99 or 03 A two digit representation of a year

Time

a -- am or pm Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem

A -- AM or PM Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem

g -- 1 through 12 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros

G -- 0 through 23 24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros

h -- 01 through 12 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros

H -- 00 through 23 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros

i -- 00 to 59 Minutes with leading zeros

PHP and Oracle handle date formats entirely different. It makes validating dates somewhat of a headache if you're using Oracle's timestamp or date data types and PHP's date function.

You could of course store your database dates in a varchar type which I constantly keep seeing and really annoys me.

I needed to preform a query that gets the records from a table within the past 7 days.

There are two ways of doing this. You can use PHP to get date from the last 7 days or you can subtract Oracle's sysdate by 7.

<?php

# Method 1: PHP strtotime method

$seven_days_ago = date("mdY", strtotime("-7 days"));

#the query

$my_query = "SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE WHERE TO_CHAR(MYDATE, 'MMDDYYYY') >= :seven_days_ago";

$parsed = ociparse($myConnection, $my_query); oci_bind_by_name($parsed, ":seven_days_ago", $seven_days_ago); ociexecute($parsed); $row = ocifetchstatement($parsed, $results);

/*********************************************************/

# Method 2: Oracle Date Formatting - back end query

#the query

$my_query = "SELECT * FROM MY_TABLE WHERE TO_CHAR(MYDATE, 'MMDDYYYY') >= TO_CHAR(SYSDATE - 7,'MMDDYYYY');"; $parsed = ociparse($myConnection, $my_query); ociexecute($parsed); $row = ocifetchstatement($parsed, $results);