Extract multiple date format from few string variables in php - php

Question

I need to extract the date out of a string variable, and the date are formatted in various kind of formats as below:
$date1 = "03/12/2011 (Sat)";
$date2 = "3.12.2011 SAT";
$date3 = "Date: 03/12/2011 "; /* <-- the extra trailing space is intentional */
$date4 = "date:03/12/2011";
$date5 = "date: 03/12/2011";
$date6 = "03/12/2011";
$date7 = "13.12.2011 TUE";
What is the best way to create a PHP function which will work for all the input variables above in extracting the correct date info?

Answer 1

For more info on the DateTime object returned by the function, check the PHP documentation for the DateTime class.
/**
* Parses date from string
* #param string $str Uncorrected date string
* #return DateTime PHP datetime object
*/
function date_grab($str)
{
// regex pattern will match any date formatted dd-mm-yyy or d-mm-yyyy with
// separators: periods, slahes, dashes
$p = '{.*?(\d\d?)[\\/\.\-]([\d]{2})[\\/\.\-]([\d]{4}).*}';
$date = preg_replace($p, '$3-$2-$1', $str);
return new \DateTime($date);
}
// verify that it works correctly for your values:
$arr = array(
"03/12/2011 (Sat)",
"3.12.2011 SAT",
"Date: 03/12/2011 ", /* <-- the extra trailing space is intentional */
"date:03/12/2011",
"date: 03/12/2011",
"03/12/2011"
);
foreach ($arr as $str) {
$date = date_grab($str);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d') . "\n";
}

Answer 2

you can use the below function, it will match all the variables you spcecified.
function extractDates($mydate)
{
$date = explode(" ", $mydate);
$output = $date[0];
if ($date[0] == "Date:" || $date[0] == "date:")
{
$output = $date[1];
}
return $output;
}
$date1 = "Date: 03/12/2011";
echo extractDates($date1);
The output will be as you expected: "03/12/2011".
You can also test all your strings:
$date1 = "03/12/2011 (Sat)";
$date2 = "3.12.2011 SAT";
$date3 = "Date: 03/12/2011 "; /* <-- the extra trailing space is intentional */
$date4 = "date:03/12/2011";
$date5 = "date: 03/12/2011";
$date6 = "03/12/2011";
$date7 = "13.12.2011 TUE";