Parsing
There are multiple methods for creating date objects, the easiest of which is the static parse() method:
$date = Date::parse("2008-02-22");
The following date formats are supported:
Format | Description | Example
----------------------------------------------------
yyyy-mm-dd | Human readable universal | 2014-09-14
dd-mm-yyyy | Human readable (british) | 22-08-2014
dd/mm/yyyy | Human readable (british) | 17/06/2014
dd-mm-yy | Human readable (british) | 22-08-12
dd/mm/yy | Human readable (british) | 17/06/13
yyyymmdd | Sortable numeric | 20140930
yyyymm | Numeric year and month | 201305
The parse method is also available on the DateTime class:
$date = DateTime::parse("2014-12-31", "14:30:00");
The following time formats are supported:
Format | Description | Example
--------------------------------------------------
hh:mm:ss | Human readable universal | 16:59:00
hh:mm | Human readable universal | 09:30
hhmmss | Sortable numeric | 43000
It also accepts a single parameter containing both date and time:
$date = DateTime::parse("2014-10-01-17:30:00.000000");
The following formats are supported:
Format | Description | Example
----------------------------------------------------------
Y-m-d-hh:mm:ss.u | IBM DB2 SQL DateTime | 2014-09-03-16:59:00
YmdHis | Sortable numeric | 20140930112055
YmdHi | Sortable numeric | 201409301120
Specifying a format
While the above code is useful and flexible, it is often more robust to only accept a specific format.
This is also useful to support any format not available via parse().
# Date only
$date = Date::fromFormat("Y-m-d", "2014-01-31");
# Date and time
$date = DateTime::fromFormat("d/m/Y H:i:s", "28/02/2008 06:30:12");
# An extreme example
$date = DateTime::fromFormat("F D j H/i (Y)", "March Mon 2 06/30 (2015)");