How to: Retrieve Date and Time Type as Strings Using the SQLSRV Driver

This feature was added in version 1.1 of the Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server and is only valid when using the SQLSRV driver for the Microsoft Drivers for PHP for SQL Server. It is an error to use the ReturnDatesAsStrings connection option with the PDO_SQLSRV driver.

You can retrieve date and time types (datetime, date, time, datetime2, and datetimeoffset) as strings by specifying an option in the connection string.

To retrieve date and time types as strings

• Use the following connection option:

  'ReturnDatesAsStrings'=>true
  

  The default is false, which means that datetime, Date, Time, DateTime2, and DateTimeOffset types will be returned as PHP Datetime types.

Example

The following example shows the syntax specifying to retrieve date and time types as strings.

<?php
$serverName = "MyServer";
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"AdventureWorks", 'ReturnDatesAsStrings '=> true);
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);
if( $conn === false )
{
   echo "Could not connect.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

sqlsrv_close( $conn);
?>

The following example shows that you can retrieve dates as strings by specifying UTF-8 when you retrieve the string, even when the connection was made with "ReturnDatesAsStrings" => false.

<?php
$serverName = "MyServer";
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"AdventureWorks", "ReturnDatesAsStrings" => false);
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);
if( $conn === false ) {
   echo "Could not connect.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

$tsql = "SELECT VersionDate FROM AWBuildVersion";

$stmt = sqlsrv_query( $conn, $tsql);

if ( $stmt === false ) {
   echo "Error in statement preparation/execution.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

sqlsrv_fetch( $stmt );

// retrieve date as string
$date = sqlsrv_get_field( $stmt, 0, SQLSRV_PHPTYPE_STRING("UTF-8"));

if( $date === false ) {
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true ));
}

echo $date;

sqlsrv_close( $conn);
?>

The following example shows how to retrieve dates as strings by specifying UTF-8 and "ReturnDatesAsStrings" => true in the connection string.

<?php
$serverName = "MyServer";
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"AdventureWorks", 'ReturnDatesAsStrings'=> true, "CharacterSet" => 'utf-8' );
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);
if( $conn === false ) {
   echo "Could not connect.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

$tsql = "SELECT VersionDate FROM AWBuildVersion";

$stmt = sqlsrv_query( $conn, $tsql);

if ( $stmt === false ) {
   echo "Error in statement preparation/execution.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

sqlsrv_fetch( $stmt );

// retrieve date as string
$date = sqlsrv_get_field( $stmt, 0 );

if ( $date === false ) {
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true ));
}

echo $date;
sqlsrv_close( $conn);
?>

The following example shows how to retrieve the date as a PHP type. 'ReturnDatesAsStrings'=> false is on by default.

<?php
$serverName = "MyServer";
$connectionInfo = array( "Database"=>"AdventureWorks");
$conn = sqlsrv_connect( $serverName, $connectionInfo);
if( $conn === false ) {
   echo "Could not connect.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

$tsql = "SELECT VersionDate FROM AWBuildVersion";

$stmt = sqlsrv_query( $conn, $tsql);

if ( $stmt === false ) {
   echo "Error in statement preparation/execution.\n";
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

sqlsrv_fetch( $stmt );

// retrieve date as string
$date = sqlsrv_get_field( $stmt, 0 );

if ( $date === false ) {
   die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true ));
}

$date_string = date_format( $date, 'jS, F Y' );
echo "Date = $date_string\n";

sqlsrv_close( $conn);
?>

See Also

Concepts

Retrieving Data