Question

I have a table with 2 rows, one of which represents date and the other time. These rows are not date format; they are int type and I can’t change the original rows’ type. The date entries are written as 20120306, and the time entries are written, for example, 13000 for 01:30 UTC in 5 digits, and 130000 for 13:00 UTC in 6. What I need to do is put both strings (date and time) into 1 UNIX timestamp. I can either use this in a php script or merge them into a new table, whichever works best. The problem for me is the php mysql syntax, functions and sequence for putting these 2 odd strings together into one timestamp.

If I can figure out how to do this, it would help me solve a whole mess of inaccuracies in a calendar reminder script I am trying to put together. I have tried configuring these strings into times separately in the queries, but no matter how it’s filtered, the outcome is right in some circumstances and wrong in others due to the nature of the original program. If I had a PHD in PHP I would rewrite the entire program but I don’t. I am a major newbie at this. So I just need to write my little PHP scripts to utilise what has already been provided. Any help in my learning quest would be appreciated.

Answer 1

The function strtotime() can also read compound formats.
If you take a look at that list you will notice that your format is a close match to the "XMLRPC (Compact)" listed there.

It’s your date string concatenated with a "t" and the time string. So, after you expanded your time string to length 6 (you already know how to do that), you can produce such a string and strtotime() will output your Unix time stamp:

$dt = "20120306";
$tm = "130000";
    
$unixTime = strtotime($dt . "t" . $tm);