In PHP how do a translate a date to numerical format not knowing the format of the string beforehand?

Question

Examples of the translations I need to do:

$stringDate = "November 2009";  $output = "11/09";
$stringDate = "October 1 2010"; $output = "10/01/2010";

$stringDate = "January 2010"; $output = "01/10";
$stringDate = "January 9 2010"; $output = "01/09/2010";

Note that I do not know which format the $stringDate will be in and the lack of commas in the month day year set.

Thanks for any help anyone might offer.

Answer 1

PHP.net strtotime

First convert it to UNIX timestamp using strtotime, then to your own format using date() function.

Answer 2

Use strtotime() - it can capture the date and/or time in most formats and convert it to a timestamp which you then can format as you wish with date().

EDIT:
You can for example do it like this:

$stringDate = "October 1 2010";
$mysql_datetime = date("Y-m-d H:i:s",strtotime($stringDate));

Answer 3

Your problem is that "November 2009" is not a date but "October 1 2010" is.

If your input type is unknown (date, date range, etc.), it´s going to be extremely difficult to get a reliable conversion.

For a date you can of course use date("format", strtotime($input)) but that only solves part of the problem and will lead to problems if $input is not a date.