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If I have a PHP string in the format of mm-dd-YYYY (for example, 10-16-2003), how do I properly convert that to a Date and then a DateTime in the format of YYYY-mm-dd? The only reason I ask for both Date and DateTime is because I need one in one spot, and the other in a different spot.

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13 Answers 13

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587

Use strtotime() on your first date then date('Y-m-d') to convert it back:

$time = strtotime('10/16/2003'); $newformat = date('Y-m-d',$time); echo $newformat; // 2003-10-16

Make note that there is a difference between using forward slash / and hyphen - in the strtotime() function. To quote from php.net:

Dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats are disambiguated by looking at the separator between the various components: if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed; whereas if the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed.

To avoid potential ambiguity, it's best to use ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) dates or DateTime::createFromFormat() when possible.

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10 Comments

This won't work. PHP will interpret that input as DD-MM-YYYY.
@delive your date string is most likely not a correct date.
Yes I solved this problem with " str_replace('/', '-', $var);" after apply "date('Y-m-d'....' and works well
It doesn't work because this answer is misleading. strtotime accepts certain formats. You can't feed it whatever. That's why DateTime::createFromFormat should be used instead of strtotime. Sadly, this answer has too many upvotes for anyone to pay attention. It's all copy paste these days.
One function should be added like this for better output: $newformat = new DateTime(date('Y-m-d',$time) );
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You need to be careful with m/d/Y and m-d-Y formats. PHP considers / to mean m/d/Y and - to mean d-m-Y. I would explicitly describe the input format in this case:

$ymd = DateTime::createFromFormat('m-d-Y', '10-16-2003')->format('Y-m-d');

That way you are not at the whims of a certain interpretation.

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6 Comments

Curious as to why this isn't the accepted answer... This is much more flexible than relying on the quirks of the strtotime() function.
It's important to point that php DateTime class is available since PHP version 5.2 and createFromFormat since 5.3
As with every function, you should check if it meets minimum version you must support. But PHP 5.2 EOL was Jan 2011. Nobody should be running it any more; catering to those people is just enabling them to run outdated, insecure software.
@Matthew yes, correct. But you never now, even today I found a PHP4.1 version still installed ...
I agree with commenters saying this should be the accepted answer, unless for some godforsaken reason you happen to be stuck with PHP 4 point something. In that case, date formatting ought to be the least of your worries.
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To parse the date, you should use: DateTime::createFromFormat();

Ex:

$dateDE = "16/10/2013"; $dateUS = \DateTime::createFromFormat("d.m.Y", $dateDE)->format("m/d/Y");

However, careful, because this will crash with:

PHP Fatal error: Call to a member function format() on a non-object

You actually need to check that the formatting went fine, first:

$dateDE = "16/10/2013"; $dateObj = \DateTime::createFromFormat("d.m.Y", $dateDE); if (!$dateObj) { throw new \UnexpectedValueException("Could not parse the date: $date"); } $dateUS = $dateObj->format("m/d/Y");

Now instead of crashing, you will get an exception, which you can catch, propagate, etc.

$dateDE has the wrong format, it should be "16.10.2013";

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Notice that checking $dateObj that way would only asure that the format matches the mask, not that the date is actually valid. For example, a date like 99/99/2010 would pass this check since it matches m/d/Y but it's not a date that you usually want to allow. This answer addresses this situation -> stackoverflow.com/a/10120725/995014
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$d = new DateTime('10-16-2003'); $timestamp = $d->getTimestamp(); // Unix timestamp $formatted_date = $d->format('Y-m-d'); // 2003-10-16

Edit: you can also pass a DateTimeZone to DateTime() constructor to ensure the creation of the date for the desired time zone, not the server default one.

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2 Comments

I believe this will throw an exception because month 16 is invalid.
It's important to point that php DateTime class is available since PHP version 5.2 and getTimestamp since 5.3
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Since no one mentioned this, here's another way:

$date = date_create_from_format("m-d-Y", "10-16-2003")->format("Y-m-d");
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This is the most elegant solution. IMHO. Bravo.
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To create a date from any string you can use:

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d-m-y H:i', '01-01-01 01:00'); echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i');
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4

If you have the date formatted as "07/May/2018" and need to make it into "2018-05-07" so that it is MySQL compatible, you can use:

if (!empty($date)) { $timestamp = strtotime($date); if ($timestamp === FALSE) { $timestamp = strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $date)); } $date = date('Y-m-d', $timestamp); }
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For first Date

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

For New Date

$_newDate = date("Y-m-d",strtotime($_yourDateString));
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3

If you have format dd-mm-yyyy then in PHP it won't work as expected. In PHP document they have below guideline.

Dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats are disambiguated by looking at the separator between the various components: if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed; whereas if the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed.

So, you just can't use as you wish. When your try to use dd/mm/yyyy format with this then it will remove FALSE. You can tweak with the following.

$date = "23/02/2013"; $timestamp = strtotime($date); if ($timestamp === FALSE) { $timestamp = strtotime(str_replace('/', '-', $date)); } echo $timestamp; // prints 1361577600
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2

It worked for me to do something like:

$stringDate = "2022-02-24T17:15:00"; (if you only send the date "2022-02-24" it fills the time in 00:00:00).

$dateFormat = new DateTime($miStringDate);

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I try all the above answers, but fail for me where in my case I built a function that get date string with the following format 'YYYY/mm/dd' . so i think much better to explode the string like that:

$old_date = explode('/', $coming_date_str);

$new_data = $old_date[0].'-'.$old_date[1].'-'.$old_date[2]; // this to convert the string as all the above posts and complete

$new_date = date('Y-m-d', strtotime($new_data)); $new_date = DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d", new_date);
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0

If you wish to accept dates using American ordering (month, date, year) for European style formats (using dash or period as day, month, year) while still accepting other formats, you can extend the DateTime class:

/** * Quietly convert European format to American format * * Accepts m-d-Y, m-d-y, m.d.Y, m.d.y, Y-m-d, Y.m.d * as well as all other built-in formats * */ class CustomDateTime extends DateTime { public function __construct(string $time="now", DateTimeZone $timezone = null) { // convert m-d-y or m.d.y to m/d/y to avoid PHP parsing as d-m-Y (substr avoids microtime error) $time = str_replace(['-','.'], '/', substr($time, 0, 10)) . substr($time, 10 ); parent::__construct($time, $timezone); } } // usage: $date = new CustomDateTime('7-24-2019'); print $date->format('Y-m-d'); // => '2019-07-24'

Or, you can make a function to accept m-d-Y and output Y-m-d:

/** * Accept dates in various m, d, y formats and return as Y-m-d * * Changes PHP's default behaviour for dates with dashes or dots. * Accepts: * m-d-y, m-d-Y, Y-m-d, * m.d.y, m.d.Y, Y.m.d, * m/d/y, m/d/Y, Y/m/d, * ... and all other formats natively supported * * Unsupported formats or invalid dates will generate an Exception * * @see https://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.date.php PHP formats supported * @param string $d various representations of date * @return string Y-m-d or '----' for null or blank */ function asYmd($d) { if(is_null($d) || $d=='') { return '----'; } // convert m-d-y or m.d.y to m/d/y to avoid PHP parsing as d-m-Y $d = str_replace(['-','.'], '/', $d); return (new DateTime($d))->format('Y-m-d'); } // usage: <?= asYmd('7-24-2019') ?> // or <?php echo asYmd('7-24-2019'); ?>
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If you want to get the last day of the current month you can do it with the following code.

$last_day_this_month = date('F jS Y', strtotime(date('F t Y')));
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