format of date string for strtotime() function in php

Question

I have a following string:

$time = "01/01/2015"; // format is m/d/Y

I want to convert it to an integer value using strtotime() function so that I can compare it with another date. This is the integer value that I get after I convert it to string:

strtotime($time); // Gives me => int(1420092000)

My Question:

Looking at the above format of time string, how will the strtotime() function know that the format of the string is "m/d/Y" or "d/m/y"? Do I have to specify the format in strtotime() function as a second parameter if that is possible?

If you want to disambiguate dates cleanly, start looking at DateTime objects and the createFromFormat() method — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented Jan 11, 2015 at 11:10

Mark Baker · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-11 11:08:30Z

3

As said on the php.net manual for strtotime:

Note:

Dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats are disambiguated by looking at the separator between the various components: if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed; whereas if the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed. To avoid potential ambiguity, it's best to use ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) dates or DateTime::createFromFormat() when possible.

So, if you use slashes to seperate, it will assume month / day / year, and if you use dash or a dot, php will assume day - month - year.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php

edited Jan 11, 2015 at 11:08

Mark Baker

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answered Jan 11, 2015 at 10:18

Matthew

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Comments

Rizier123 · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-11 10:23:55Z

0

No you don't have to specify the format for strtotime(), you specify it with using /, . or -.

As a quote from the manual:

Note: Dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats are disambiguated by looking at the separator between the various components: if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed; whereas if the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed.

But if you want to see the implementation of this function you can search for it in the php github source code here: https://github.com/php/php-src

Here is the implementation of strtotime(): https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/master/ext/date/php_date.c#L1442

edited Jan 11, 2015 at 10:23

answered Jan 11, 2015 at 10:18

Rizier123

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