Question

Within a for loop, I’m using the following code to convert from one date format to another:

339: $newdate = date_create_from_format('j-M g:i A', $moneyline[$i][date]);
340: echo date_format($newdate, 'Y-m-d');

According to the var_dump of $moneyline[$i][date], my variable appears to be a string:
string(15) "18-Jun 7:05 PM"

But when I use the variable as an argument for the $newdate constructor, $newdate creates a boolean according to vardump:
bool(false)

That means when I try to execute line 340, I get the following error:

Warning: date_format() expects parameter 1 to be DateTime, boolean given in /home/andrewmin/andrewmin.com/share/scraping/betting_scraping.php on line 340

However, if I change line 339 to:

339: $newdate = date_create_from_format('j-M g:i A', '18-Jun 7:05 PM');

it prints perfectly. Anyone have any ideas on why?

edit: sorry, it’s not a foreach, it’s a for:

for ($i = 2; $i < $array_length; $i++) {

Answer 1

Surely when I test using this code:

$moneyline = array(
  13 => array(
    'date' => "18-Jun 7:05 PM"
  )
);
$i = 13;
$newdate = date_create_from_format('j-M g:i A', $moneyline[$i][date]);
echo date_format($newdate, 'Y-m-d');

I get this result:

**Notice:**  Use of undefined constant date - assumed 'date' in J:\www\test\datetime.php on line 89

2012-06-18

The notice can be gotten rid of by properly quoting the 'date' array index.

My guess: your $moneyline array contains a string not conforming to the date format you provided (e.g. an empty string). In this case, date_create_from_format will fail and will return false.

If in doubt, please post a more complete copy of the code involved and an array the code fails on.