PHP - date formatting issue

Question

I am trying to format dates from a UK format to YYYY-MM-DD an am getting weird results.

The code I am using is:

echo "<br>".$_GET['trans_date'];
echo "<br>".$_GET['next_payment'];
echo "<br>".$_GET['payment_date'];
echo "<br><br>".date("Y-m-d", strtotime($_GET['trans_date']));
echo "<br>".date("Y-m-d", strtotime($_GET['next_payment']));
echo "<br>".date("Y-m-d", strtotime($_GET['payment_date']));

And I get the following results:

I am expecting the following results:

Can anyone what's going wrong?

Thanks,

John

As per the PHP documentation: when PHP encounters a / in a date with a xx/xx/xxxx structure, it treats it as US format (mm/dd/yyyy).... either change the / to - before using strtotime() or use DateTime::createFromFormat() to create a DateTime object — Mark Baker
– Mark Baker, Commented May 19, 2016 at 14:38
strtotime function expects to be given a string containing an English date format ( mm/dd/yyyy) — Ravinder Reddy
– Ravinder Reddy, Commented May 19, 2016 at 14:40

Sampath G · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-19 17:34:18Z

You can't really set a locale for strtotime.

If you're American, you see 11/12/10 and think "12th November, 2010".

If you're Australian (or European), you think it's "11th December, 2010".

If you're a sysadmin who reads in ISO, it looks like "10th December 2011".

The best way to compensate for this is by modifying your joining characters.

Forward slash (/) signifies American M/D/Y formatting, a dash (-) signifies European D-M-Y and a period (.) signifies ISO Y.M.D.

So, My suggestion is always use DateTime object for dates to avoid unnecessary errors.

Ex: $date = DateTime::createFromFormat('j-M-Y', '15-Feb-2009');
echo $date->format('Y-m-d');

Coming to your question, solution is:

$trans_date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y', $_GET['trans_date']);
$next_payment_date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y', $_GET['next_payment']);
$payment_date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y', $_GET['payment_date']);

echo "<br><br>".$trans_date->format('Y-m-d');
echo "<br>".$next_payment_date->format('Y-m-d');
echo "<br>".$payment_date->format('Y-m-d');

Sofiene Djebali · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-19 14:46:18Z

1

This should work :

echo "<br><br>".date("Y-m-d", strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $_GET['trans_date'])));
echo "<br>".date("Y-m-d", strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $_GET['next_payment'])));
echo "<br>".date("Y-m-d", strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $_GET['payment_date'])));

answered May 19, 2016 at 14:46

Sofiene Djebali

4,5481 gold badge24 silver badges28 bronze badges

Comments

Rohit · Accepted Answer · 2016-05-19 14:56:44Z

1

Just Set you given date to 05/19/2016 means mm/dd/yy format and it will be fixed.

answered May 19, 2016 at 14:56

Rohit

3773 silver badges15 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

PHP - date formatting issue

3 Answers 3

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related