convert php date to mysql format

I have a date field in php which is using this code:

$date = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['intake_date']);

How do I convert this to MySql format 0000-00-00 for inclusion in db. Is it along the lines of: date('Y-m-d' strtotime($date);. The reason I ask, is because I have tried variations of this and I cannot seem to get it to work. Either displays as 1970 or some other variation of that. Many thanks

$date = mysql_real_escape_string($_POST['intake_date']);

1. If your MySQL column is DATE type:

$date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime(str_replace('-', '/', $date)));

2. If your MySQL column is DATETIME type:

$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime(str_replace('-', '/', $date)));

You haven't got to work strototime(), because it will not work with dash - separators, it will try to do a subtraction.

Update, the way your date is formatted you can't use strtotime(), use this code instead:

$date = '02/07/2009 00:07:00';
$date = preg_replace('#(\d{2})/(\d{2})/(\d{4})\s(.*)#', '$3-$2-$1 $4', $date);
echo $date;

Output:

2009-07-02 00:07:00

This site has two pretty simple solutions - just check the code, I provided the descriptions in case you wanted them - saves you some clicks.

http://www.richardlord.net/blog/dates-in-php-and-mysql

1.One common solution is to store the dates in DATETIME fields and use PHPs date() and strtotime() functions to convert between PHP timestamps and MySQL DATETIMEs. The methods would be used as follows -

$mysqldate = date( 'Y-m-d H:i:s', $phpdate );
$phpdate = strtotime( $mysqldate );

2.Our second option is to let MySQL do the work. MySQL has functions we can use to convert the data at the point where we access the database. UNIX_TIMESTAMP will convert from DATETIME to PHP timestamp and FROM_UNIXTIME will convert from PHP timestamp to DATETIME. The methods are used within the SQL query. So we insert and update dates using queries like this -

$query = "UPDATE table SET
    datetimefield = FROM_UNIXTIME($phpdate)
    WHERE...";
$query = "SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(datetimefield)
    FROM table WHERE...";

You are looking for the the MySQL functions FROM_UNIXTIME() and UNIX_TIMESTAMP().

Use them in your SQL, e.g.:

mysql> SELECT UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW());
+-----------------------+
| UNIX_TIMESTAMP(NOW()) |
+-----------------------+
|            1311343579 |
+-----------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT FROM_UNIXTIME(1311343579);
+---------------------------+
| FROM_UNIXTIME(1311343579) |
+---------------------------+
| 2011-07-22 15:06:19       |
+---------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)