strtotime not returning false for the wrong string

[asmafarhat2006]

Description

The following code:

<?php

$trimmed = 'MONDAY 2, Tuesday 2,  Wednesday 3, Thursday 4, Friday 5';
var_dump(strtotime($trimmed));


$trimmed = 'Monday ,Tuesday , Wednesday';
var_dump(strtotime($trimmed));

For first var_dump returns false which is correct but for second var_dump returns the UNIX timestamp which is incorrect
It should return false when there are multiple days in week. which it does for the first example but doesnt for the 2nd.

Affects all PHP versions 7.4+

PHP Version

PHP 7.4+

Operating System

No response

[heiglandreas]

according to https://3v4l.org/mA3ZR it looks like the result is the same since PHP 5.1.0

[asmafarhat2006]

Yes probably, i didnt check in older versions but doesnt seem its the correct behaviour.

[heiglandreas]

It does not. the function parses the string from left to right. It therefore sets the timestamp to 00:00 of Wednesday.

The first string is just a broken string as strtotime does not understand the string Monday 2. It should probably be 2 Monday if you are interested in the next monday.

See https://3v4l.org/j5bW0

So the function actually works as expected.

[asmafarhat2006]

Ok. So it does accept multiple days in a string. Not sure how to invalidate the string then. I dont want both of these to be computed as datetime

…

On Mon, 9 Oct 2023, 13:48 Andreas Heigl, ***@***.***> wrote: It does not. the function parses the string from left to right. It therefore sets the timestamp to 00:00 of Wednesday. The first string is just a broken string as strtotime does not understand the string Monday 2. It should probably be 2 Monday if you are interested in the next monday. See https://3v4l.org/j5bW0 So the function actually works as expected. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#12393 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ABQ5MNB7ZDT6S6NDSXZY5OTX6PXDHAVCNFSM6AAAAAA5YXQK5SVHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMYTONJSHE2DSOBUGI> . You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>

[heiglandreas]

Sounds like a problem in your business-domain but not a fault of the underlying strtotime function...

If that is user-provided input I'd suggest to convert it and then display the information back to the user "We recognized Nov. 21st. Is that what you meant?" and let them validate what they did...

Without context hard to say.

Perhaps check the stackoverflow PHP-Chat or https://phpc.chat and ask there?

[asmafarhat2006]

Thanks alot for your help.