从输入字符串格式化日期时间

Question

I'm doing a date search filter where I have my date displayed as "j.n.Y G:i (26.6.2012 15:22)". A user can enter the whole date or only a portion of it: "26.6","6.2012","6","15:22" are all valid inputs. Because I need to check this date in the database the format needs to be changed to the one of the database. For that I use:

$datum = '25.6.2012';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('j.n.Y',$datum);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i');

Where I get an error if $datum is not in the format j.n.Y (if I only enter j.n or one of the above mentioned string portions i get an error).

A problem is also, for the entered string 'j.n.Y', i get the right output of the date, which also has the current time added to the date string (which was not in the initial date string). Example: I enter "22.6.2012", then I get the output "2012-06-22 15:33".

Can these two problems get fixed with existing php functions or should I make my own?

Help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You can list your acceptable data formats in an array, and loop around DateTime::createFromFormat() to see if any of the inputs produce an acceptable date:

$formats = array( 'j.n', 'j.n.Y');
$datum = '25.6.2012'; $date = false;

foreach( $formats as $format) {
    $date = DateTime::createFromFormat( $format, $datum);
    if( !($date === false)) break;
}

if( $date === false) {
    echo "Invalid date!
";
}

Finally, if you want to get rid of the current time in the newly created object and set the time to 00:00:00, just use the setTime() method on the date object:

// Sets the time to O hours, 0 minutes, 0 seconds
$date->setTime( 0, 0, 0);