[FLOW3-general] DateTime limited to Unix timestamp?

[Karsten Dambekalns]

Hi.

On Thu, 01 Jul 2010 14:00:12 +0200, Jigal van Hemert <jigal at xs4all.nl>  
wrote:
> If I read it correctly, FLOW3 still uses the Unix timestamp to store  
> dates. Wouldn't this be a good opportunity to move to a 64-bit format?

Yes, we use getTimestamp() and setTimestamp() currently on the DateTime  
objects. That was the way of least resistance.

As has been pointed out, the timestamp itself is not the problem, rather  
the range in which it is stored. We could switch to something better here,  
and probably will do in later, optimized backends. Currently the PDO  
backend with the scope of "pure ANSI SQL" cannot handle dates any better,  
at least that was my conclusion. Integers allow range queries on any  
database, timestamp can be set and retrieved reliably from DateTime, and  
we don't need any fancy type handling in the DB layer right now.

I'm all in for optimizing this, but currently we didn't have further  
needs. As soon as start/end come into play for TYPO3 Phoenix that will  
probably change. :)

If anyone compiles a list of date handling ways for various RDBMSs and a  
really good way to get/set something like DateTime::ISO8601 on DateTime  
objects regardless of the format the DB delivers I'd be happy. Talking  
about it, there was a lot of trouble in the way DateTimeZone and DateTime  
worked together, IIRC.

Anyway, not being entirely happy with the current solution I am definitely  
open for something better! DateTime handling experts to the rescue!

Regards,
Karsten