Exploding a date exploding multiple symbols? Possible?

HairyArse

Hi guys,

I have an online database which a few of our staff members are using, the problem is though that everyone enters dates differently.

Some people enter them as 01-01-2001 or 01/01/2001

At present my PHP code explodes the -, but I want it to also explode the / if present, can this be done and if so how?

Current code:

list($day,$month,$year)=explode("-",$Date_Sample_Submitted);
$Date_Sample_Submitted=$year.'-'.$month.'-'.$day;

thorpe

always a bit risky letting users insert there own dates. if possible (eg, if the users are entering current date), try to insert this date yourself, or maybe even give them a drop down to select from. i mean.... some people would see 2005/01/01 as a valid date. what do you do then?

anyway... maybe you could run a small test. the date is allways going to have 3 parts.... so, just check if exploding on - returns more than 1 part. if it doesn't, then there is no - in the date. so your next 'guess' is to try and explode it on /

$date = explode("-",$Date_Sample_Submitted);
if (!count($date) > 1) {
  $date = explode("/",$Date_Sample_Submitted);
}

just an idea. hope this helps.

HairyArse

I know what you mean about how risky it is letting them enter dates themselves and it doesn't matter how many times I drill it into their heads that they have to enter it a certain way, they always forget.

The problem is, this whole database is meant to actually be a record of dates....so I can't get around it. They are constantly entering the dates for which they sent products out, or samples etc.....

It's really frustrating. Particuarly as I'm a PHP SQL newbie, it took me long enough to work out how to get the dates to display in a UK style as opposed to an SQL style...

AstroTeg

I HIGHLY recommend [man]strtotime[/man] mixed in with [man]date[/man] to convert the users' date input into something standard for use in your database.

For example:

$databasedate = date('m/d/Y', strtotime($userdate));

I think you'll find strtotime pretty forgiving and allow users to get pretty creative entering dates. You have to watch if some one enters an invalid date by mistake. Say 9/31/2005. September only has 30 days. This date would get converted to 10/1/2005. This can be good and bad. The good is its database friendly. The bad is this may have been a legit data entry problem and they really wanted 9/30/2005. A possible work around might be to test the strings directly to see if they're the same - but this will work only if you know the string format the user used. It can get messy depending on the rules you set up.

For the ultimate in bullet proof date entry, go with 3 drop down boxes (one for month, day, and year). Then validate the date they entered to make sure its a valid date.

jkurrle

example code I use in a lot of my coding...

function Start_Date_Select()
{
echo "
<select name='Start_Month'>
  <option value='January'>January</option>
  <option value='February'>February</option>
  <option value='March'>March</option>
  <option value='April'>April</option>
  <option value='May'>May</option>
  <option value='June'>June</option>
  <option value='July'>July</option>
  <option value='August'>August</option>
  <option value='September'>September</option>
  <option value='October'>October</option>
  <option value='November'>November</option>
  <option value='December'>December</option>
</select>
<select name='Start_Day'>
  <option value='1'>1</option>
  <option value='2'>2</option>
  <option value='3'>3</option>
  <option value='4'>4</option>
  <option value='5'>5</option>
<option value='6'>6</option>
  <option value='7'>7</option>
  <option value='8'>8</option>
  <option value='9'>9</option>
  <option value='10'>10</option>
  <option value='11'>11</option>
  <option value='12'>12</option>
  <option value='13'>13</option>
  <option value='14'>14</option>
  <option value='15'>15</option>
  <option value='16'>16</option>
  <option value='17'>17</option>
  <option value='18'>18</option>
  <option value='19'>19</option>
  <option value='20'>20</option>
  <option value='21'>21</option>
  <option value='22'>22</option>
  <option value='23'>23</option>
  <option value='24'>24</option>
  <option value='25'>25</option>
  <option value='26'>26</option>
  <option value='27'>27</option>
  <option value='28'>28</option>
  <option value='29'>29</option>
  <option value='30'>30</option>
  <option value='31'>31</option>
</select>
<select name='Start_Year'>
  <option value='2005'>2005</option>
  <option value='2006'>2006</option>
  <option value='2007'>2007</option>
</select>
";
}

I also have an End_Date_Select() function that does the same thing except it returns End_Month End_Day and End_Year variables, instead of Start_Month, Start_Day, Start_Year variables. That way, they only can put the information in one way....

jkurrle

I rewrote the code a little, as one of my users requested that the dropdown date show the current date as a default. I also changed out the year from static values to dynamic. That way, I don't need to update the code every year or two. Here is the revised function:

function End_Date_Select()
{
$now=time();
$This_Month=date("F",$now);
$This_Day=date("j",$now);
$This_Year=date("Y",$now);

$months[1]="January";
$months[2]="February";
$months[3]="March";
$months[4]="April";
$months[5]="May";
$months[6]="June";
$months[7]="July";
$months[8]="August";
$months[9]="September";
$months[10]="October";
$months[11]="November";
$months[12]="December";

echo "<select name='End_Month'>";

while ($Month_Value=array_shift($months))
  {
  if ($This_Month=="$Month_Value")
    echo "<option value='$Month_Value' selected>$Month_Value</option>";
  else
    echo "<option value='$Month_Value'>$Month_Value</option>";
  }

echo "</select>
<select name='End_Day'>";

for ($i=1;$i<=31;$i++)
  {
  if ($i==$This_Day)
    echo "<option value='$i' selected>$i</option>";
  else
    echo "<option value='$i'>$i</option>";
  }

echo "</select>
<select name='End_Year'>";

for ($i=$This_Year;$i<=($This_Year+2);$i++)
  echo "<option value='$i'>$i</option>";
echo "</select>";
}

TheDefender

Too limited... Using this method, your users can select a day that doesn't exist in a given month... For example, a user can select April 31. If you feed that into the strtotime function, it will autoconvert it to May 1, but what if the user meant April 30? In order to effectively do the dropdown thing, you need to dynamically set the day select values, based on the values given for the year and month. (You need to select the year and month first, to account for the leap years as well).

Dynamicdrive.com has a DHTML solution which has a popup calendar date select script. That may be a better option than that dropdown solution, since the user browses a calendar to the specific day/date/month/year and selects it from the calendar itself.

OR, if you want to continue to let the user manually input the dates, then have them hand type in the day, month and year in their own boxes. You can then take those 3 values, and concatenate them into the format you want to use... (You would still need to be sure you validate the days based on the years and months)

AstroTeg

Originally posted by TheDefender
Too limited... Using this method, your users can select a day that doesn't exist in a given month...

Right. BUT, using the above method with 3 drop down boxes WITH strtotime for validation, he should be ok.

User enters an invalid date. April 31, 2005. Because there's seperate input boxes, we can build our own date string. Like this:

$userdate = $usermonth . '/' . $userday . '/' . $useryear;  // (month, day, year to be numeric form data)

Then, to make sure its a valid date, you could do this:

$testdate = date('m/d/Y', strtotime($userdate));

Now, strtotime() has this bad habit of converting an invalid date into a valid date, even if its not what the user wanted. So, to check if that happened, we can do this:

if($testdate != $userdate)
{
  // date validation failed.  User entered an invalid date.  Return user to form and have them correct it.
}  // end if($testdate != $userdate)

At this point, its up to the coder to decide how to handle the failed validation.

DHTML and JavaScript are great, and will make the user experience better, but won't be able to stop those who disable JavaScript and/or are messing with your form.