What are the differences between PHP timestamps and MySQL timestamps, and how should they be managed in a PHP application?

When working with timestamps in PHP and MySQL, it's important to understand that PHP timestamps are typically in Unix timestamp format (seconds since Unix epoch) while MySQL timestamps are in a different format (YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS). To manage this difference in a PHP application, you can convert between the two formats using PHP's date() and strtotime() functions when interacting with the database. 

// Convert PHP timestamp to MySQL timestamp
$phpTimestamp = time();
$mysqlTimestamp = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $phpTimestamp);

// Convert MySQL timestamp to PHP timestamp
$mysqlTimestamp = '2022-01-01 12:00:00';
$phpTimestamp = strtotime($mysqlTimestamp);

Keywords

PHP timestamps MySQL timestamps data types date functions timestamp conversion

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