convert mysql DATETIME to timestamp ??

convert mysql DATETIME to timestamp ??

Hi,
It would be nice to store my time stamp in my
mysql db as the YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss format that
the msql uses because it is easily readable.

BUT is there a function that converts this into the timestamp format
so that I can use php to change the date with my script at another time ?

thanks if you know of one .

First Method:
In MySQL you can use a couple functions to convert back and forth between UNIX timestamps and MySQL datetimes: FROM_UNIXTIME() and UNIX_TIMESTAMP(). See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/date-and-time-functions.html for more info.

mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(1196440219);
        -> '2007-11-30 10:30:19'
mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(1196440219) + 0;
        -> 20071130103019.000000
mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(UNIX_TIMESTAMP(),
    ->                      '%Y %D %M %h:%i:%s %x');
        -> '2007 30th November 10:30:59 2007'

Second Method:

<?php
/*
* Function to turn a mysql datetime (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS) into a unix timestamp
* @param str
*     The string to be formatted
*/

function convert_datetime($str) {

    list($date, $time) = explode(' ', $str);
    list($year, $month, $day) = explode('-', $date);
    list($hour, $minute, $second) = explode(':', $time);
    
    $timestamp = mktime($hour, $minute, $second, $month, $day, $year);
    
    return $timestamp;
}
?>