Problem with short date format in php - php

Question

I have problem with date function in php. If I supply string in format "d.m.y" for example "01.01.01" it gets rendered as todays date which means that php gets confused.
I found:
Note:
The "Day, month and two digit year, with dots or tabs" format (dd [.\t] mm "." yy)
only works for the year values 61 (inclusive) to 99
(inclusive) - outside those years the time format "HH [.:] MM [.:] SS" has
precedence.
on: php.net site
How to override this behavior?
I know of date_create_from_format function which would work fine if I knew input will always be in format "d.m.y", but it won't.
UPDATE 1:
Code
$date = new DateTime('01.01.01');
echo $date->format('Y-m-d');
outputs 2010-10-19 and I wanted 2001-01-01.

Answer 1

To format a date other than now, use the second parameter. For example:
echo date("d.m.y", 1255982665);
echoes 19.10.09

Answer 2

Just read the documentation! PHP's site is excellent
It seems like you want to reformat a date?
mktime() gives unix timestamp from component pieces
date() gives string from unixtimestamp (or implied now)
getdate() gives assoc array from unix timestamp
I think you want -
$arr = explode($dateIn, ':'); //get array [day, month, year]
$timestamp = mktime(0,0,0, $arr[0], $arr[1], $arr[2]) //unix time stamp, a long integer representing time
date(DESIREDFORMAT, $timestamp);
check out the output formats here - http://us2.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

Answer 3

function getDateFromString( $str )
{
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat( 'd.m.y', $str );
if ( $date !== false )
return $date->getTimestamp();
// you can try other common formats here
// ...
// otherwise just parse whatever there is
return strtotime( $str );
}
echo date( 'd.m.Y H:i', getDateFromString( '01.01.01' ) ); // 01.01.2001 20:14
Edit
To adjust it a bit more to get your exact output:
function getDateTimeFromString( $str )
{
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat( 'd.m.y', $str );
if ( $date !== false )
return $date;
// you can try other common formats here
// ...
// otherwise just parse whatever there is
return new DateTime( $str );
}
$date = getDateTimeFromString( '01.01.01' );
echo $date->format( 'Y-m-d' ); // 2001-01-01