Question

I’ve got a webapp (using php), my clients are java-based and are submitting dates to me using:

System.currentTimeMillis();

so my web app gets it via a post, so it’s a string, like:

$submittedTime = "9734367890508";

I want to insert it into a mysql table field, I think either a DATETIME or TIMESTAMP field can store it.

What type of field should I use, and how do I get that submitted value into the mysql table such that I can do queries later on using all the mysql time functions?

Thanks

Answer 1

To use it with PHP, you’ll have to divide it by 1000 to turn it into seconds. Once it’s in seconds, you can format it with the date() command, like so:

<?php
    // Get timestamp from somewhere and assume it's $timestamp
    $timestamp = (int) ($timestamp / 1000);
    // MySQL takes year-month-day hour:minute:second format
    $mysql_datetime = date('%Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s', $timestamp);
?>

Having said that, what’s wrong with just using the time from PHP or MySQL themselves? It’s be the same date call in PHP, but without the second argument; or just setting the value to NOW() in MySQL.