php dateTime::createFromFormat in 5.2?

Question

I have been developing on php 5.3.

However our production server is 5.2.6.

I have been using

$schedule = '31/03/2011 01:22 pm'; // example input
if (empty($schedule))
    $schedule = date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
else {
    $schedule = dateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y h:i a', $schedule);
    $schedule = $schedule->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
}
echo $schedule;

However that function is not available in 5.2

What is the easiest way to get around this (no chance of a php upgrade).

Solution 1

just include the next code

function DEFINE_date_create_from_format()
  {

function date_create_from_format( $dformat, $dvalue )
  {

    $schedule = $dvalue;
    $schedule_format = str_replace(array('Y','m','d', 'H', 'i','a'),array('%Y','%m','%d', '%I', '%M', '%p' ) ,$dformat);
    // %Y, %m and %d correspond to date()'s Y m and d.
    // %I corresponds to H, %M to i and %p to a
    $ugly = strptime($schedule, $schedule_format);
    $ymd = sprintf(
        // This is a format string that takes six total decimal
        // arguments, then left-pads them with zeros to either
        // 4 or 2 characters, as needed
        '%04d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%02d',
        $ugly['tm_year'] + 1900,  // This will be "111", so we need to add 1900.
        $ugly['tm_mon'] + 1,      // This will be the month minus one, so we add one.
        $ugly['tm_mday'], 
        $ugly['tm_hour'], 
        $ugly['tm_min'], 
        $ugly['tm_sec']
    );
    $new_schedule = new DateTime($ymd);

   return $new_schedule;
  }
}

if( !function_exists("date_create_from_format") )
 DEFINE_date_create_from_format();

Solution 2

Because strtotime does poorly when confronted with D/M/Y and date_create_from_format isn't available, strptime may be your only hope here. It does some pretty oldschool things, like deal with years as if they are the number of years since 1900 and deal with months as if January was month zero. Here's some horrible example code that uses sprintf to reassemble the date into something DateTime understands:

$schedule = '31/03/2011 01:22 pm';
// %Y, %m and %d correspond to date()'s Y m and d.
// %I corresponds to H, %M to i and %p to a
$ugly = strptime($schedule, '%d/%m/%Y %I:%M %p');
$ymd = sprintf(
    // This is a format string that takes six total decimal
    // arguments, then left-pads them with zeros to either
    // 4 or 2 characters, as needed
    '%04d-%02d-%02d %02d:%02d:%02d',
    $ugly['tm_year'] + 1900,  // This will be "111", so we need to add 1900.
    $ugly['tm_mon'] + 1,      // This will be the month minus one, so we add one.
    $ugly['tm_mday'], 
    $ugly['tm_hour'], 
    $ugly['tm_min'], 
    $ugly['tm_sec']
);
echo $ymd;
$new_schedule = new DateTime($ymd);
echo $new_schedule->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

If it works, you should see the same, correct date and time printed twice.

Solution 3

I think it is much cleaner to extend the DateTime class and implement createFromFormat() yourself like this:-

class MyDateTime extends DateTime
{
    public static function createFromFormat($format, $time, $timezone = null)
    {
        if(!$timezone) $timezone = new DateTimeZone(date_default_timezone_get());
        $version = explode('.', phpversion());
        if(((int)$version[0] >= 5 && (int)$version[1] >= 2 && (int)$version[2] > 17)){
            return parent::createFromFormat($format, $time, $timezone);
        }
        return new DateTime(date($format, strtotime($time)), $timezone);
    }
}

$dateTime = MyDateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2013-6-13');
var_dump($dateTime);
var_dump($dateTime->format('Y-m-d'));

This will work in all versions of PHP >= 5.2.0.

See here for a demo http://3v4l.org/djucq

Comments

[Hailwood]

out of curiosity, whats the difference between your code and else { $schedule = str_replace('/', '-', $schedule); $schedule = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime($schedule)); }

[Jacob]

This is probably the best solution unless you can have more control over the input and ensure you are using Supported Date and Time Formats.

[Charles]

strtotime does not understand D/M/Y. It only can handle Y/M/D and M/D/Y. If you try to pass a D/M/Y to it, it will fail. strtotime('20/02/2003') returns false. You'd have to pass '20.03.2003' (note the dots!) to get that format recognized, which isn't the date format you expect.

[Hailwood]

I understand that strtotime does not like / but if you convert / to - then it works perfectly. I am finding it hard to read your code above, mind commenting it a bit to explain what each function is doing?

[Charles]

It looks like D-M-Y is supported, but your example date includes only slashes. Further, while D-M-Y is supported, M-D-Y is not -- replacing slashes on a M/D/Y would result in an unparsable date. I'll edit my code with more comments in a moment.

[Hailwood]

also if ` deal with years as if they are the number of years since 1900` is true would you not want to subtract 1900 instead of adding 1900?

[Charles]

I've edited my post with some inline comments, and a link to the sprintf documentation. tm_year ends up being 111 here, so we need to add 1900 to get back to 2011. Yes, it really works that way. Freaky, ain't it? Brings me back to my Perl days...

[Hailwood]

Wow, that year handling is messed up! Cheers!

[Jacob]

@Hailwood @Charles see my answer stackoverflow.com/questions/5287224/… about date formats.

[andreapier]

This is a GREAT answer. Should really get more upvotes! Thanks

[glerYbo]

Support for DateTime 'M': $schedule_format = str_replace(array('M', 'Y', 'm', 'd', 'H', 'i', 'a'),array('%b', '%Y', '%m', '%d', '%I', '%M', '%p'), $dformat);

[glerYbo]

There is a small bug, as 'H' should be replaced to %H (24-hour format), not %I (12-hour format). So here is improved line: $schedule_format = str_replace(array('M', 'Y', 'm', 'd', 'H', 'i', 'a'), array('%b', '%Y', '%m', '%d', '%H', '%M', '%p'), $dformat);

[Shelly Warren]

Just read the question, please forgive me, meant to post on applicable question but was excited to have finally solved the issue and have no idea how to delete this, my bad.

[morgar]

This doesn't work in 5.2.x with an usual non English format like 'd/m/Y', but it works if you replace '/' with '-'.

[vascowhite]

As 5.2.x reached EOL nearly 6 years ago I'm not too concerned about it. Thanks for letting me know anyway.

[Marco Andreolli]

Doesn't work on Windows!, strptime is not implemented