Converting string to Date and DateTime

Question

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

Answer 1

To parse the date, you should use: DateTime::createFromFormat();

Ex:

$dateDE = "16/10/2013";
$dateUS = \DateTime::createFromFormat("d.m.Y", $dateDE)->format("m/d/Y");

However, careful, because this will crash with:

PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function format() on a non-object 

You actually need to check that the formatting went fine, first:

$dateDE = "16/10/2013";
$dateObj = \DateTime::createFromFormat("d.m.Y", $dateDE);
if (!$dateObj)
{
    throw new \UnexpectedValueException("Could not parse the date: $date");
}
$dateUS = $dateObj->format("m/d/Y");

Now instead of crashing, you will get an exception, which you can catch, propagate, etc.

$dateDE has the wrong format, it should be "16.10.2013";