[TYPO3-dev] bug dbType for date before 01-01-1970

[Jigal van Hemert]

Hi Xavier,

On 25-9-2014 10:13, Xavier Perseguers wrote:
> It does not work properly since you cannot do anything useful with pure
> MySQL queries on negative timestamp.

"anything" is a big word here :-) You have to use some tricks, but if 
you *have* to work with negative timestamps in MySQL you can use:

DATE_ADD(FROM_UNIXTIME(0), INTERVAL date_of_birth SECOND)

FROM_UNIXTIME(date_of_birth) returns NULL for negative timestamps.

The original definition of the Unix timestamp stated that timestamps for 
dates prior to 1-1-1970 were "undefined". The C library for date / time 
calculations however supported negative timestamps until quite a few 
years ago one of the developers found the original definition and 
removed the support. PHP quickly added support (because it broke a lot 
of scripts around the world) but apparently MySQL sticks to the original 
definition (or just uses the C library).

-- 
Jigal van Hemert
TYPO3 CMS Active Contributor

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