Can I avoid `DateTime::__construct` warning on invalid date? - php

Question

This is about DateTime::__construct. According to this comment:
If time cannot be parsed an exception of type Exception is thrown which can be caught, however an E_WARNING is emitted as well. This might be confusing if you are converting warnings to exceptions in your error or shutdown handler.
Can I avoid the warning? I have a code like (I don't care if the date is well formed or not):
try {
$var = new DateTime('some invalid date format');
} catch (Exception $exception) {
$var = null;
}
But it still send a E_WARNING that is reported to my error catcher (I use NewRelic in a Laravel application). And I don't want this error to be reported because it's not an error, I catched it.
How can I avoid DateTime::__construct emit a warning?

Answer 1

This is possibly one of the few cases where it's acceptable to use:
try {
$var = #new DateTime('some invalid date format');
} catch (Exception $e) {
$var = null;
}
However you can avoid the # operator by doing:
try {
$oldErrorReporting = error_reporting();
error_reporting($oldErrorReporting & ~E_WARNING);
$var = new DateTime('some invalid date format');
error_reporting($oldErrorReporting);
} catch (Exception $e) {
$var = null;
}

Answer 2

Use the date_create() function instead.
It (I assume) internally works similar to the try/catch block you want to avoid and returns FALSE if the date is not valid. It doesn't trigger any error or warning.
The code:
$var = date_create('some invalid date format');
is, more or less, the same as:
try {
$var = new DateTime('some invalid date format');
} catch (Exception $exception) {
$var = false;
}

Answer 3

You should create an error handler like this:
//set_error_handler();
set_error_handler(function($msg, $code, $severity, $file, $lineno, $errText) {
if (0 === error_reporting()) {
return false;
}
throw new ErrorException($msg, $code, $severity, $file, $lineno);
});
Then,
try {
$var = new DateTime('some invalid date format');
} catch (ErrorException $exception) {
$var = null;
}