How do I test for a valid date?

[razorsedgeuk]

Hi.

Using a form with dates entered as <SELECTS>.

The first is for the Date with values from 1 to 31.

The second is for the Month with values from 1 to 12 (labels are January, February, etc)

The third is for the year with values from 1900 to 2099.

I want to check the dates in an easier way than working out leap years and stuff.

I join the bits together so they are stored as CCYYMMDD.

Ideally I want something like ...

if (constructed_date != convertdatetostring(convertstringtodate(constructed_date)) {
date_error(); }

Any suggestions?

Initially I was going to use timestamps, but they don't work before 1970. (What's that all about?). Is there a proper date type in PHP?

Regards,

Richard Quadling.

[razorsedgeuk]

This seems to work ...

function ValidateDate($sVD_CCYYMMDD)
{
$bFailure = true;
$CCYY = 1;
$MM = 2;
$DD = 3;

// $aDate[1]->CCYY, $aDate[2]->MM, $aDate[3]->DD
if (ereg("([0-9]{4})([0-9]{2})([0-9]{2})", $sVD_CCYYMMDD, $iaDate))
{
$iMonthDays = array(1 => 31,28,31,30,31,30,31,31,30,31,30,31);
if (($iaDate[$CCYY] >= 1900) and ($iaDate[$CCYY] <= 9999))
{
if(($iaDate[$MM] >= 1) and ($iaDate[$MM] <= 12))
{
$iThisMonthDays = $iMonthDays[$iaDate[$MM]] + ((($iaDate[$CCYY] % 4) == 0) and ((($iaDate[$CCYY] % 100) <> 0) or (($iaDate[$CCYY] % 400) == 0)) ? 1 : 0);
if ($iaDate[$DD] >= 1 and $iaDate[$DD] <= $iThisMonthDays)
{
$bFailure = False;
}
}
}
}
return $bFailure;
}

Regards,

Richard Quadling.

[josephferris]

The checkdate function will do this for you also. All you need to do is pass the parts of the date to it.

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.checkdate.php