SmallDateTime from MS-SQL not working in PHP

Question

I have a strange problem that when using PHP to connect to a MSSQL database using freetds the query returns no data.

I have two SQL queries:

SELECT TOP 100 *
FROM [TBL_Contact] AS C
LEFT JOIN [TBL_Address] AS A
    ON (C.[ContactID] = A.[ContactID])
;

and

SELECT TOP 100
    N.[NoteID],
    N.[NoteTypeID],
    N.[IsPrivate],
    CAST(N.[NoteText] AS TEXT) AS [NoteText],
    N.[ManageUserID],
    N.[DisplayDate],
    N.[CreateUserID],
    N.[CreateDateE],
    N.[EditUserID],
    N.[EditDate]
FROM [TBL_Note] AS N
LEFT JOIN [TBL_Contact_Note] AS C
    ON (C.[NoteID] = N.[NoteID])
;

When run directly on the MSSQL Server they both work as expected and return data. However when running them via PHP by wrapping them in a mssql_query() function call.

$result = mssql_query('
   SELECT TOP 100 *
   FROM [TBL_Contact] AS C
    LEFT JOIN [TBL_Address] AS A
        ON (C.[ContactID] = A.[ContactID])
    ;
');

$result1 = mssql_query('
    SELECT TOP 100
        N.[NoteID],
        N.[NoteTypeID],
        N.[IsPrivate],
        CAST(N.[NoteText] AS TEXT) AS [NoteText],
        N.[ManageUserID],
        N.[DisplayDate],
        N.[CreateUserID],
        N.[CreateDateE],
        N.[EditUserID],
        N.[EditDate]
    FROM [TBL_Note] AS N
    LEFT JOIN [TBL_Contact_Note] AS C
        ON (C.[NoteID] = N.[NoteID])
    ;
');

Then only the first one returns data.

---

I have experimented by removing fields from the query and have found that it is the smalldatetime field N.[DisplayDate] that is causing the issue. When I run the query with that field removed then the mssql_query() call works.

Answer 1

Ok I've found out what the issue is there is a bug with PHP and the smalldatetime data type

There is a fix for this which involves disabling the mssql.datetimeconvert setting in the php.ini file.

The fix found on the web is to using ini_set to change the setting.

ini_set('mssql.datetimeconvert', 0);