Sanitizing a Date

Question

I am using a javascript date picker that allows the user to select a date. However, I would like to also sanitize the posted date data before entering into the database. I am not seeing any sanitize filter here: http://us2.php.net/manual/en/filter.filters.sanitize.php

What would be the best method to sanitize a date before entering into a database?

This would be the original value from the post:

$datepick = $_POST['date'];
// wich is 04/12/2014

Then I convert it for the database:

$date = date("Y-m-d", strtotime($datepick));

Thanks!

Answer 1

If your date is like "03/02/2014" then you can simply clean your variable by regexp:

$date = preg_replace("([^0-9/])", "", $_POST['date']);

This allows only digits (0-9) and fwd slash (/).

Answer 2

Formatting the date sanitizes it, because:

1. If the formatter succeeds, then it will only be a date, with syntax controlled by the format string.
2. If it fails, then FALSE is returned.

This is true of:

DateTime::format
DateTimeImmutable::format
DateTimeInterface::format
date_format()
Date($format, $date_string)