DateTime::createFromFormat in PHP < 5.3.0

Question

I\'m looking for a function identical to DateTime::createFromFormat but I need it to work in an environment running a version of PHP which is older than v5.3. Basically I ne

Answer 1

For PHP version prior to 5.3 I use this function bellow to get DateTime object form strings formated as 'DD.MM.YYYY'.

function ParseForDateTimeValue ($strText)
{
    if ($strText != "")
    {
        if (ereg("^([0-9]{1,2})[/\.]\s*([0-9]{1,2})[/\.]\s*([0-9]{2,4})$",$strText,$arr_parts)) {

            $month = ltrim($arr_parts[2], '0');
            $day = ltrim($arr_parts[1], '0');
            $year = $arr_parts[3];

            if (checkdate($month, $day, $year)) {
               return new DateTime(date('Y-m-d H:i:s', mktime(0, 0, 0, $month, $day, $year));
            }
        }
    }
    return NULL;
}

• First validate if input is correct.
• Then extract month, day and year
• Use checkdate to validate the date.
• Convert it to timestamp and pass it to contructor of DateTime and return it.