Hello all,

I am using the SQL Server PHP Driver, I think this question can be answered without knowing what this is.

I have come across this many times, what does it mean by NAMES? Column names?:

SET NAMES utf8

Is there a query similar to the above that will get my dates to be returned as a string? For some reason on my SQL Sever 2008 on Vista, this works:

$connectionInfo = array('Database' => $dbname, 'ReturnDatesAsStrings' => true)

But the above 'ReturnDatesAsStrings' does not work on my SQL Server 2005 on a windows server machine? I can't execute any queries after setting the above!

Does SQL Server 2005 support ReturnDatesAsStrings? Is there some other parameter I can pass to do the same?

Thanks all for any help

EDIT

I should of mentioned this but if there is a solution I am hoping for one that is in the form of a setting that can be set before any queries can be executed as I do not have control on what queries will be executed.