Multi tool use

How to compare between different date formats?

I have four different date formats that I will store in a DB, Then show the latest ones.

The four different formats:

$a = '27. júní 2018 04:53';
$b = 'Friday, 09 March 2018';
$c = 'Fri, 29 Jun 2018 11:00:00 GMT';
$d = 'Mon, 18 Jun 2018 06:52:20 +0000';


They will be stored in a MYSQL Database.

What should I do with them?

Can SQL or MYSQL date type do the work?

Should I convert them using strtotime()?

strtotime()

Should I extract some data from specific ones to male them match?

DATETIME

TIMESTAMP

1 Answer
1

MySQL has three data types suitable for date/time values. These are pretty well explained in the documentation.

You have three types of values:

But the basic questions to ask:

If you need just the date, then date will do. Otherwise, you want datetime or timetamp. Which depends on how you want to treat timezones.

date

datetime

timetamp

If you actually need to store the timezone with the value, then I would suggest that you think hard about whether this is really necessary. Typically, timestamp is sufficient, because it stores values in UTC which can then be converted to any original timestamp. You can store the original time zone in an alternative column.

timestamp

If you really need to handle all three types with no compromise, then you might need to use a string. In this case, you should use a correctly formatted string:

The first two are readily converted to the appropriate type in MySQL. For the third, you can extract the timezone and add it as an offset (with a bit of work).

However, I doubt whether this approach is necessary. A datetime is probably sufficient.

datetime

timestamp

datetime

datetime

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