[SOLVED] mysql date format to strotime function works in php5, not in php4

[vynsane]

i'm trying to create a list of distinct months where there are archived entries to a blog. it works on my localhost under php5, but it doesn't under php4 because the strtotime function won't understand that mysql is pulling a date in a different format. here is the sql statement:

 

SELECT DISTINCT DATE_FORMAT(submitDate,'%Y-%m') AS date FROM table WHERE archived = 'y' ORDER BY date DESC

 

and the function that i'm tring to use to turn that into a different format

 

function monthYear($submitDate) {
$formattedDate = date("F Y", strtotime($submitDate));
return "$formattedDate";
}

 

in php5, i get a list that consists of

 

September 2007

August 2007

 

(which is correct, i only have two months with archived entries)

 

but in php4 i get

 

December 1969

December 1969

 

the reason why i'm using the date_format is because i need to transform it into two different forms - the kind above, and also into 09-2007 and 08-2007 for the actual url in the link. basically two functions turn the date_format version into this link:

 

<a href="/archive:09-2007/">September 2007</a>

 

how can i pull only a distinct MONTH and YEAR (don't want distinct dates, because i'll get a row for each DAY) and then turn that into the two desired formats in php4? i've tried tacking on a "-01" to the date to fool php4 into thinking that it's a full legitimate date, but that only freaks it out more. perhaps i'm just not adding it correctly...

[cooldude832]

simple answer I think is the stortime in 4 is a bit pickier than in 5 so its seeing September 2007 as 092007 which returns the year 0920 the month 07, which is pre the epoch so it stores the initail epcoh

[vynsane]

right, i understand why it's happening, i need to get around the "pickiness" or "limitations" (depending on how you see it) of php4's strtotime function and figure out a way to get to what i need.

 

i've tried variations of adding "-01" to the end of my date variable to try to fill it out into a full date, but to no avail. like this:

 

$row['date']-01 = $fauxDate;

"".$row['date']."-01" = $fauxDate;

 

and so on, but it's not working...

[Barand]

perhaps

 

SELECT DISTINCT DATE_FORMAT(date, '%M %Y') as date1, DATE_FORMAT(date, '%m-%Y') as date2...

[vynsane]

yeah, that did it. thanks much, barand!