PHP: getting a space added after month in a date - php

Question

I've got a form that loops (using while) all the months of the year in a drop-down. The value is the month in digits (m) and the text is the month in words (F). Everything displays correctly, yet when I post the form I'm getting a space after the 2 month digits. I've checked the form via an echo that the month digits are displaying without a trailing space, so it's definitely after posting. I've tried removing the trailing space with both "substr" and "rtrim" - neither remove the trailing space
Form code:
<div class="col-4">
<label for="phaseMonth" class="form-label ps-2 fw-bold">Draw-off Month</label>
<?php
$month = strtotime('2022-01-01');
$end = strtotime('2023-01-01');
$limonth = date('F', strtotime($row_lqe['drawoffDate']));
?>
<select name="phaseMonth" title="Select a Date" class="form-select border border-secondary" required>
<option value="">Select a Month</option>
<?php while ($month < $end) { ?>
<option value="<?php echo date('m', $month), PHP_EOL; ?>"
<?php if (!(strcmp(date('F', $month), $limonth))) {echo "selected=\"selected\"";} ?>>
<?php echo date('F', $month), PHP_EOL; ?>
</option>
<?php $month = strtotime("+1 month", $month); ?>
<?php } ?>
</select>
</div>
Post code:
$phaseMonth = $_POST['phaseMonth'];
if (empty($phaseMonth)) {
$newphaseMonth = "01";
} else {
$newphaseMonth = substr($phaseMonth, 0, -1);
}
$phaseYear = $_POST['phaseYear'];
if (empty($phaseYear)) {
$phaseYear = "2022";
}
$drawoffDate = $phaseYear . "-" . $newphaseMonth . "-01";
echo "$phaseMonth:$newphaseMonth:$phaseYear:$drawoffDate"; // to show trailing space
echo output:
11 :11 :2023:2023-11 -01

Answer 1

You seemed to miss the point about your excessive overuse of <?php and ?> tags; see this example and how much cleaner it is to view and work with:
<div class="col-4">
<label for="phaseMonth" class="form-label ps-2 fw-bold">Draw-off Month</label>
<?php
$month = strtotime('2022-01-01');
$end = strtotime('2023-01-01');
$limonth = date('F', strtotime($row_lqe['drawoffDate']));
print "<select name='phaseMonth' title='Select a Date'
class='form-select border border-secondary' required>
<option value=''>Select a Month</option>\n";
while ($month < $end) {
print "<option value='".date('m', $month)."'";
if (strcmp(date('F', $month), $limonth) === 0) {
echo "selected='selected'";
}
print ">".date('F', $month)."</option>\n";
$month = strtotime("+1 month", $month);
}
?>
</select>
</div>
Remove your PHP_EOL they're worthless here.
Use single and double quotes to double wrap quote marks rather than escaping quotes.
Use string concatenation . to streamline, as well as removing ?> <?php
This is a quick example only and can be further reduced but reduces readability.