Question

This is a learning project for me and I have made a couple of inquiries on this site already which taught me quite a bit. But I am having problems with the “switch” routine and would appreciate any guidance I can muster. This switch routine was a suggestion but I get errors. I have done quite a bit of research but I still can’t figure out how to accomplish this process. I also don’t understand what the “@” means in “date_create(“@$qucls”)”. It doesn’t seem to matter if it is there or not but this was the suggestion along with the routine.

The queries check out as far as getting me what i want to produce but once I try to update the time strings, it gets bogged down.
The error is, “date_format() expects parameter 1 to be DateTime, boolean given in…”. As far as I know, $qucls should be a string of numbers not a true/false thing. There is definitely a number string in these table fields in the form of int.

Just to repeat other of my posts, I can’t change the database without going over my head. I need to take information from it to make email reminders from a calendar program. The tables are convoluted with unusual forms and lengths of date/time strings so there is much more to this script than appears here. In my process, this is where I am in figuring it out and it’s not too bad for a septuagenarian. I’ll go for cleaning it up after I figure out the processes that get the right outcome.

Here’s the applicable part of the script:

date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
$today = date("Ymd");
mysql_select_db($dbname);
$querydel = "SELECT cal_entry_id, cal_type FROM webcal_entry_log WHERE cal_type = 'D'";
$delqu = mysql_query($querydel);
$i = 0;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($delqu, MYSQL_NUM)) {
    $qudel[$i] = $row[0];
}
$query1 = "SELECT cal_id, cal_name, cal_date, cal_time, cal_type, cal_description FROM webcal_entry WHERE cal_type = 'M' AND cal_date != ' . $today . ' AND cal_id != " . $qudel[$i];
$wequ1 = mysql_query($query1);
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($wequ1, MYSQL_NUM)) {
    $quid1[$i] = $row[0];
    $quname[$i] = $row[1];
    $qutime[$i] = $row[3];
    $qudesc[$i] = $row[5];

    $query2 = "SELECT cal_id, cal_type FROM webcal_entry_repeats WHERE cal_id = " . $quid1[$i];
    $wer1 = mysql_query($query2);
    if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($wer1, MYSQL_NUM)) {        
        $qutype[$i] = $row[1];
    }

    $query3 = "SELECT cal_id, cal_last_sent FROM webcal_reminders WHERE cal_id = " . $quid1[$i];
    $wer2 = mysql_query($query3);
    if ($row = mysql_fetch_array($wer2, MYSQL_NUM)) {
        $qucls[$i++] = $row[1];
    }
}
for ($j = 0; $j < $i; $j++) {
}
// date calculations - switch routine

$dateObj = date_create("@$qucls");

switch($qutype) {
  case "daily":
    date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 day"));
    break;
  case "weekly":
    date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 week"));
    break;
  case "monthly":
    date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 month"));
    break;
  case "yearly":
    date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 year"));
    break;
}

$qucls = date_format($dateObj, "U");

Thanks!

Edit: $qucls outputs an array of Unix time stamps as int() type after the query loop ends. Once it encouters – $dateObj = date_create(“@$qucls”) , $dateObj returns false. I can’t seem to find the trick.

Answer 1

In looking at the code, it appears that $qucls is an array (based on the line $qucls[$i++] = $row[1];). date_create does not accept an array as the first parameter.

The @ sign would indicate to date_create that you’re passing a unix timestamp.

I’d recommend checking if ($dateObj === false) to see if date_create is returning a proper value.

It also appears that $qutype is an array. Not really sure how switch reacts to being passed an array …

Before you try to call date_create … you should print_r($qutype) and print_r($qucls) to make sure you know what kind of data you’re dealing with.

So, are you trying to do something like this:

foreach($qutype as $key => $type){
    $time    = $qucls[$key];
    $dateObj = date_create("@$time");

    switch($type) {
      case "daily":
        date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 day"));
        break;
      case "weekly":
        date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 week"));
        break;
      case "monthly":
        date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 month"));
        break;
      case "yearly":
        date_add($dateObj, date_interval_create_from_date_string("1 year"));
        break;
    }

    $qucls[$key] = date_format($dateObj, "U");
}

You can do a print_r before and after the loop to ensure that all $qucls values are being updated …