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Request #41335 strtotime does not parse australian style dates correctly
Submitted: 2007-05-09 02:37 UTC Modified: 2008-01-17 21:03 UTC
From: daniel dot oconnor at gmail dot com Assigned: derick (profile)
Status: Closed Package: Feature/Change Request
PHP Version: 5.2.2 OS: All
Private report: No CVE-ID: None
View Developer Edit
 [2007-05-09 02:37 UTC] daniel dot oconnor at gmail dot com 
Description:
------------
Australians tend to do dates in dd/mm/yyyy format, rather than mm/dd/yyyy

strtotime cannot handle this when the seperator is a '/', but can for '-' and '.'

PHP should either:
 * Use consistent parsing all the way through. It should not matter if I pick a '-', '/' or '.'
 * Provide me an argument or configuration setting with which I can change the default behaviour.
   See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calendar_date#Date_format for a list of countries which use dd/mm/yyyy as a default, compared to a list of those who use mm/dd/yyyy.


Reproduce code:
---------------
<?php
print phpversion() . "\n\n";

$times = array();
$times[] = '1-10-2007';
$times[] = '1/10/2007';
$times[] = '1.10.2007';

$times[] = '13-10-2007';
$times[] = '13/10/2007';
$times[] = '13.10.2007';

$times[] = '2007-10-10';
$times[] = '2007/10/10';
$times[] = '2007.10.10';

$times[] = '13-13-2007';
$times[] = '13/13/2007';
$times[] = '13.13.2007';

foreach ($times as $time) {
    print $time ."\n\t" . strtotime($time) . "\n\t" . date('Y-m-d H:i:sa', strtotime($time)) . "\n\n";
}

Expected result:
----------------
---------- php ----------
5.2.2

1-10-2007
	1191196800
	2007-10-01 00:00:00am

1/10/2007
	1168387200
	2007-01-10 00:00:00am

1.10.2007
	1191196800
	2007-10-01 00:00:00am

13-10-2007
	1192233600
	2007-10-13 00:00:00am

13/10/2007
	1192233600
	2007-10-13 00:00:00am

13.10.2007
	1192233600
	2007-10-13 00:00:00am

2007-10-10
	1191974400
	2007-10-10 00:00:00am

2007/10/10
	1191974400
	2007-10-10 00:00:00am

2007.10.10
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13-13-2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13/13/2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13.13.2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am


Output completed (0 sec consumed) - Normal Termination

Actual result:
--------------
---------- php ----------
5.2.2

1-10-2007
	1191196800
	2007-10-01 00:00:00am

1/10/2007
	1168387200
	2007-01-10 00:00:00am

1.10.2007
	1191196800
	2007-10-01 00:00:00am

13-10-2007
	1192233600
	2007-10-13 00:00:00am

13/10/2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13.10.2007
	1192233600
	2007-10-13 00:00:00am

2007-10-10
	1191974400
	2007-10-10 00:00:00am

2007/10/10
	1191974400
	2007-10-10 00:00:00am

2007.10.10
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13-13-2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13/13/2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am

13.13.2007
	
	1970-01-01 00:00:00am


Output completed (0 sec consumed) - Normal Termination

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 [2007-05-09 06:15 UTC] derick@php.net 
Using / here is problematic as it's also the separator in use by the US folks, but then in the opposite way. Providing a configuration parameter won't work as the parser would not be able to handle that. As it's deliberately not working it is not a bug, but a feature request. It would be possible to allow parsing according to a given format but that would be totally new functionality which could make it into PHP 6.
 [2008-01-17 21:03 UTC] derick@php.net 
This bug has been fixed in CVS.

Snapshots of the sources are packaged every three hours; this change
will be in the next snapshot. You can grab the snapshot at
http://snaps.php.net/.
 
Thank you for the report, and for helping us make PHP better.

THis is now fixed (for PHP 5.3 and higher). With the date_create_from_format() function you can now do this:

<?php
$date = date_create_from_format("d/m/Y", "1/10/2007");
echo $date->format( 'c' );
?>

// outputs:
2007-10-01T22:02:37+02:00
 
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