Convert day, full month, year and country to YYYY-MM-DD - php

Question

I'm trying to convert the string 18 December 2009 (Sweden) to 2009-12-18 but I can't figure out how. So I asking you now: how can I do this?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You can use strtotime():
<?php
$sdate = '18 December 2009';
$timestamp = strtotime($sdate);
$d = date('Y-m-d', $timestamp);
echo "$d\n"; // 2009-12-18
If your problem is that the '(Sweden)' part is always present, you could just remove that part first:
<?php
$sdate = '18 December 2009 (Sweden)';
$sdate = preg_replace('/ \(.*\)$/', '', $sdate);
$timestamp = strtotime($sdate);
$d = date('Y-m-d', $timestamp);
echo "$d\n"; // 2009-12-18
Or with added checking:
<?php
$sdate = $oImdb->getReleaseDate();
if ($sdate !== 'n/A') {
$sdate = preg_replace('/ \(.*\)$/', '', $sdate);
$timestamp = strtotime($sdate);
$d = date('Y-m-d', $timestamp);
} else {
$d = 'n/a';
}
echo "$d\n"; // 2009-12-18
Or use sscanf():
<?php
$sdate = '18 December 2009 (Sweden)';
list($day, $month, $year) = sscanf($sdate, '%d %s %d');
$timestamp = strtotime("$day $month $year");
$d = date('Y-m-d', $timestamp);
echo "$d\n"; // 2009-12-18

Answer 2

I am not sure what you are doing there, but judging from the error message you wrote in your comment to JM above, I'd say you are approaching the problem from the wrong end. Quoting:
Thanks! When I try the function with $oIMDB->getReleaseDate() I get following error messages:
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message DateTime::__construct() [datetime.--construct]: Failed to parse time string (<time itemprop="datePublished" datetime="2009-12-18">18 December 2009</time>) …
In other words, your getReleaseDate returns an XML string that has an attribute datetime with the value you are trying to convert the element value to. So, there is no need to convert anything, because the converted value is already there. All you have to do is use SimpleXml or DOM and access that attribute value, e.g.
$time = simplexml_load_string($oIMDB->getReleaseDate());
echo $time['datetime'];

Answer 3

First use Explode etc to remove the country name an store the Date and Country Name in separate strings, and then use strtotime
strtotime("18 December 2009")
strtotime(<String Variable containing date>)
It returns a timestamp, you can then use it as you want. See this for reference
Then use Date to convert the timestamp to date in the format you want.

Answer 4

There is also the PHP 5 DateTime object, which will allow you to capture time zones and convert time zones if start using times in addition to the date.
<?php
$sdate = '18 December 2009 (Sweden)';
$sdate = preg_replace('/ \(.*\)$/', '', $sdate);
$datetime = new DateTime($sdate, new DateTimeZone('UTC'));
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d'); // 2009-12-18
The DateTime object will allow you to manipulate the date without any seconds arithmetic, which can be a reason to use DateTime instead of strtotime().
For example, this would add one month to your original date. Many benefits of the DateTime class.
$datetime->add(new DateInterval('P1M'));