Question

I have a date that I am storing as a timestamp through the formatDate function in jQuery. I am then retriving this value to make an ics file, a calender file that adds the event time and details to the users calender. However the timestamp format isn’t working in the ics file, the correct date isn’t being added, so I need to convert it to a value that looks like 20091109T101015Z. It’s current format as a timestamp looks like 1344466800000This is from this example which is what I am following to create my ics file.

My link to the php file is http:// domain. com/icsCreator.php?startDate=1344380400000&endDate=1345503600000&event=Space%20Weather%20Workshop&location=London

Current my ics file looks like

<?php
$dtStart=$_GET['startDate'];
$dtEnd=$_GET['endDate'];
$eventName=$_GET['event'];
$location=$_GET['location'];

...
echo "CREATED:20091109T101015Z\n";
echo "DESCRIPTION:$eventName\n";
echo "DTEND:$dtEnd\n";    
echo "DTSTART:".$dtStart."\n";
echo "LAST-MODIFIED:20091109T101015Z\n";
echo "LOCATION:$location\n";
...

?>

Answer 1

See if this works:

date('Ymd\THis', $time)

Here $time could be startDate or endDate from your query string. If you don’t want the time:

date('Ymd', $time)

NOTE (Thanks to Nicola) Here, $time must be a valid UNIX timestamp i.e. it must represent the number of seconds since the epoch. If it represents the number of milliseconds, you need to first divide it by 1000.

EDIT As pointed out by lars k, you need to add \Z to the end of both the strings.

EDIT As pointed out by Nicola, you don’t really need it.