PHP date limit 1970 - php

Question

I'm programming a site about genealogy, I used the date input to acquire dates, and
$datamm= strftime('%Y-%m-%d', strtotime($_POST['datamm']));
to convert the dates for the database, but the minimum value that I can get is 1970-01-01. I need to acquire dates between 1500 and current day.
What can I do to solve the problem?? I prefer procedural solution if it is possible.

Answer 1

Here is an example,
<?php
$date = new DateTime( '01-01-1950' );
echo $date->format( 'Y-m-d' );
?>
DateTime is great, you can do all sorts once you understand it.
For instance, this will add a year and echo the start and end dates,
<?php
$date = new DateTime( '01-01-1950' );
echo $date->format( 'Y-m-d' )."\n";
$date->modify( '+1 years' );
echo $date->format( 'Y-m-d' );
?>

Answer 2

If you know that in which format your date is coming from input then you can try:
$datamm = DateTime::createFromFormat('j-M-Y', $_POST['datamm']);//You know that date is coming in j-M-Y format
echo $date->format('Y-m-d'); // You can save in Y-m-d format in database
if you are taking timestamp as input then :
$date = date('Y-m-d',$_POST['datamm']);//you are taking timestamp like : 30000000000 as an input
echo $date;//make in database in Y-m-d format
I hope it helps

Answer 3

Try this, use createFromFormat
// pass your date format
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d M Y','17 Jan 1500');
echo $date->format('Y-m-d');
DEMO

Answer 4

You should probably focus on using some 3rd party library instead of official PHP's datetime functions.
For example, for your advanced date-time manipulating requirements, a good alternative for PHP's standard datetime would be moment.php
It's inspired by moment.js library whose goal is to fix common date-time programming issues, and bring standardization to higher level.
You can obtain it via composer like:
{
"require": {
"fightbulc/moment": "*"
}
}
Or via github for manual installation.
To parse various input date consult a manual, below is example:
$m = new \Moment\Moment('1503-04-25T03:00:00', 'CET');
There is also other alternatives to explore, for example:
https://github.com/swt83/php-date