Question

I’m not sure that this is a bug since after searching I can’t find any duplicate experiences- however, this one has me stumped.

While in the midst of a (rather painful) script that is intended to take a bunch of freetext records and convert them to useful date records, my trusty friend strtotime() seems to have let me down.

For testing purposes, I boiled the code down to this:

<?=date('Y', strtotime("1999"));?>

Output shows: 1999

<?=date('Y', strtotime("1981"));?>

Output shows: 1981

<?=date('Y', strtotime("2001"));?>

Output shows: 2012

<?=date('Y', strtotime("2021"));?>

Output shows: 2012

Everything seems fine until the input exceeds “1999”- From that point on, every year before and after the current one returns the current year (2012)

Any input is much appreciated.

Answer 1

As per PHP’s date/time format docs:

The “Year (and just the year)” format only works if a time string has already been found — otherwise this format is recognised as HH MM.

(2nd last note on the page).