Using DateTime::CreateFromFormat to create a date object

Question

I have a string of a date:

25/08/2012

And here I'm trying to convert it to a DateTime object in order to save it to the MySQL database. My backend schema has a DateOfPrint date column ready to receive this data.

Here's what I've tried:

$eventDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/y', $fecha->innertext);
echo $eventDate;

The echo statement doesn't show anything on the screen, and when trying to save it to the database, nothing is saved in that column.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Your $eventDate contains a boolean(false) which is printed as empty string.

You need to use an upper-case Y.

Y   A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits    Examples: 1999 or 2003
y   A two digit representation of a year    Examples: 99 or 03

And you have to call DateTime::format();
e.g.

<?php
$fecha = new StdClass;
$fecha->innertext = '25/08/2012';

$eventDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y', $fecha->innertext);
if ( false===$eventDate ) {
  die('invalid date format');
}
echo $eventDate->format('Y-m-d');

prints

2012-08-25

Answer 2

You need to format it for a MySQL column before you can insert it:

// Need upper case Y here, thanks to VolkerK for pointing that out
$eventDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y', $fecha->innertext);
$eventDate = $eventDate->format( 'Y-m-d'); // I think this is the correct format

Then you can use $eventDate to save the date to the database.