Converting string to Date and DateTime

php string datetime date
Chris Pinski picture Chris Pinski · Jun 4, 2011 · Viewed 907.3k times · Source

If I have a PHP string in the format of mm-dd-YYYY (for example, 10-16-2003), how do I properly convert that to a Date and then a DateTime in the format of YYYY-mm-dd? The only reason I ask for both Date and DateTime is because I need one in one spot, and the other in a different spot.

Answer

Ibu picture Ibu · Jun 4, 2011

Use strtotime() on your first date then date('Y-m-d') to convert it back:

$time = strtotime('10/16/2003');

$newformat = date('Y-m-d',$time);

echo $newformat;
// 2003-10-16

Make note that there is a difference between using forward slash / and hyphen - in the strtotime() function. To quote from php.net:

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.

Related questions

find if date is older than 30 days

The date string looks like this 2011-08-19 17:14:40 (year-month-day hours:minutes:seconds) How can I find out if the date is older than the current date with more than 30 days?

Read More
How do I check if a string contains a specific word?

Consider: $a = 'How are you?'; if ($a contains 'are') echo 'true'; Suppose I have the code above, what is the correct way to write the statement if ($a contains 'are')?

Read More
PHP equivalent of .NET/Java's toString()

How do I convert the value of a PHP variable to string? I was looking for something better than concatenating with an empty string: $myText = $myVar . ''; Like the ToString() method in Java or .NET.

Read More