PHP mktime does not return big integer values on 64-bit system

Question

I have an issue with PHP function mktime when trying to get unix_timestamps bigger that for year 2038. I have 64-bit OS.

PHP version on server: php -v gives PHP 5.1.6 (cli) (built: Nov 29 2010 16:47:46)

php -r 'echo PHP_INT_MAX;' gives 9223372036854775807

but

php -r 'var_dump( mktime(0, 0, 0, 4, 1, 2099) );' gives bool(false)

On development server php -r 'var_dump( mktime(0, 0, 0, 4, 1, 2099) );' gives int(4078677600)

What may be the cause for this PHP function not to work properly on 64-bit system? Also strtotime does not work with dates where year is greater than 2038

Answer 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem

Who do you call? "Captain Hindsight!"

On a more serious note, for large date ranges I would use the traditional DB datetime storage method of YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS. It is easily parsed and highly portable.

Using DateTime for runtime usage is most feasible, the latter string pattern for persistence.