How to convert date from one format to another?

Question

I\'m having the date in this format in a Excel worksheet 03-Dec-10. So its not compatible while inserting it into the database. How to convert the date to the acceptable format?

Answer 1

For a more general approach, you can always dump your current format to a string, like how you have it, and use string operations to substring and reorganize. I know for a fact that MySQL accepts string values for DATETIME fields.

$day = substr($input, 0, 2);
$month = substr($input, 2, 3);
switch($month){
    case "Jan":
        $month = "01";
        break;
    ...
}

Answer 2

If you're doing this from Excel itself, you can put this formula into another column

=TEXT(A2, "YYYYmmdd")

Then copy down. This produces a compatible 8-digit date.

Answer 3

While Jon's answer is correct, here is another option:

$input = '03-Dec-10';
$date = date('Ymd', strtotime($input));

Answer 4

$input = '03-Dec-10';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d-M-y', $input);
echo $date->format('Ymd'); // or possibly 'Y-m-d'

This will output 20101203, which is presumably what you want. If it's not exactly what you are after, have a look here.

You can also do the reverse:

$input = '20101203';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('Ymd', $input);
echo $date->format('d-M-y');