Form input "birthday" to mysql

linux1943 · 11-26-2008, 03:15 AM

I have a mysql database set up and one field is to hold a date of birth. I have set this to DATE. How do I set up a FORM field to enter the d.o.b. which will be acepted in the data base field (using php)
eg INSERT INTO name,birthday etc.
Regards

nehaandrew · 11-26-2008, 09:51 AM

I believe this is "just what the doctor ordered" - http://www.weberdev.com/get_example-3287.html

Enjoy!

Linux

MicahCarrick · 11-26-2008, 09:57 AM

There are many options. You can have 3 boxes for date/month/year, you could have a date picking widget using Javascript, you could require a specific format for entry with validation, etc. What I like to do, is use PHP's strtotime() function. You will still want to give the user a hint as to the format (ie mm/dd/YYYY is not the same as dd/mm/YYYY but your code won't know that!). So this method isn't 100% full proof, but, it gets the job done in many situations and is very simple.

Code:

function sql_date_format($value) 
{
    if (gettype($value) == 'string') $value = strtotime($value);
    return date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $value);
}

$birthday = $_POST['birthday'];

// Note: Clean up and validate "birthday" variable here

$birthday = sql_date_format($birthday);
$birthday = mysql_real_escape_string($birthday);

$sql = "INSERT INTO some_table (birthday) VALUES ('$birthday')";
mysql_query($sql) or die('Insert failed for birthday = '.$birthday);

MicahCarrick · 11-26-2008, 09:58 AM

Sorry, that example was for the MySQL DATETIME data type. For the DATE format, change 'Y-m-d H:i:s' to 'Y-m-d'.