How to Properly Handle Date Formats When Inserting Dates from jQuery Datepicker into MySQL?

PHP MySQL: Handling Date Format for Insertion

When inserting dates into a MySQL database, it's crucial to ensure that they conform to the recognized formats. A common issue encountered when using jQuery datepicker is mismatches between the date format displayed in the picker and the format expected by MySQL.

In the provided code, the date string from jQuery datepicker is in 'mm/dd/yyyy' format, which is not directly recognized by MySQL. As stated in MySQL's Date and Time Literals documentation, valid MySQL date literals can be in 'YYYY-MM-DD', 'YY-MM-DD', 'YYYYMMDD', or 'YYMMDD' formats.

To resolve this issue, you can take the following steps:

• Configure Datepicker to Return a Supported Format: Use the altField and altFormat options in jQuery datepicker to specify an alternative field for storing the date in the supported format.
• Convert the Date String with STR_TO_DATE(): Convert the date string received from jQuery using MySQL's STR_TO_DATE() function to a supported format.
• Use a DateTime Object in PHP: Parse the date string using PHP's DateTime class, which provides various methods for manipulating and formatting dates.
• Manually Manipulate the Date String: Extract the individual components of the date string and concatenate them into the correct format.

Additional Considerations:

• SQL Injection Vulnerability: The provided code is vulnerable to SQL injection as it does not use prepared statements. Always use prepared statements to protect your code from malicious inputs.
• Deprecated MySQL Extension: The mysql_* functions used in the code are deprecated; consider using the mysqli or PDO_MySQL extensions instead.
• Recommendation for DATE Column: For date values without time components, consider using MySQL's DATE type instead of DATETIME or TIMESTAMP.

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