[development] DB Column Format

[Nancy Wichmann]

mark Burdett wrote:
> If you do use format_date() to put dates in the database make sure you
give it a time zone to use, otherwise you will end up
> with datetimes in different time zones depending on the current user's
configured time zone.

Thanks, Mark. In my case, it is the server (hook_cron) that is creating
these dates, so the timezone doesn't matter.

I just decided to use "date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $now)" where $now is set from the
PHP 'REQUEST_TIME' value.

Nancy E. Wichmann, PMP
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin L. King, Jr.

-----Original Message-----
From: development-bounces at drupal.org
[mailto:development-bounces at drupal.org]On Behalf Of mark burdett
Sent: Thursday, May 14, 2009 2:48 PM
To: development at drupal.org
Subject: Re: [development] DB Column Format

On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Nancy Wichmann <nan_wich at bellsouth.net>
wrote:
> Next question: Is there are Drupal or database-independent date formatting
> function that produces a DATETIME value. I know I can use date() with
> something appropriate, but I don't know how efficient that is.

using PHP functions like gmdate() should always be more efficient,
because these functions (or, date_create() and date_format() in drupal
7) are what format_date() uses anyways. Multiple times in fact.. it's
a rather slow function if you benchmark it.

If you do use format_date() to put dates in the database make sure you
give it a time zone to use, otherwise you will end up with datetimes
in different time zones depending on the current user's configured
time zone.

> Would there be any interest in my submitting a patch for
"format_date($time,
> 'datetime')?"

If this patch gets committed http://drupal.org/node/325827 then date()
function will also work in the current user's time zone, not the
server-wide time zone, so it wouldn't be useful for inserting dates in
the database or generating date-based URL path components that should
not vary depending on the current user's time zone.  I might be
interested in a helper function that generates dates in the site-wide
default time zone, otherwise developers will be doing this which is
pretty verbose for getting a date: format_date($timestamp, 'custom',
$format, variable_get('date_default_timezone',
date_default_timezone_get()), 'en')

--mark
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