PHP: Parse date from localized format

Question

I need to parse a date string in a multi-language application. Every user has their locale and then their date format.

How to use:

new DateTime($datestr);

or

date_parse($datestr);

with the localized date format?

Assuming mm/dd/yyyy as EN date format and dd/mm/yyyy as IT date format I did this test:

<?php
echo "EN locale<br>\r\n";
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'en_US');
$date="01/02/2015"; //2th Jan
$date_array=date_parse($date);
$mktime=mktime($date_array['hour'], $date_array['minute'], $date_array['second'], $date_array['month'], $date_array['day'], $date_array['year']);
$datetime=new DateTime($date);    
echo date("Y-m-d",$mktime);
echo "<br>\r\n";
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d');
echo "<br>\r\n";

echo "IT locale<br>\r\n";
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'it_IT');
$date="01/02/2015"; //1th Feb
$date_array=date_parse($date);
$mktime=mktime($date_array['hour'], $date_array['minute'], $date_array['second'], $date_array['month'], $date_array['day'], $date_array['year']);
$datetime=new DateTime($date);    
echo date("Y-m-d",$mktime);
echo "<br>\r\n";
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d');

The result is the SAME output, with both locale settings the parse is provided with the mm/dd/yyyy format. The output was always 2015-01-02 (2nd Feb)

Answer 1

This is the answer:

$formatter = new IntlDateFormatter("en_US", IntlDateFormatter::SHORT, IntlDateFormatter::NONE);
$unixtime=$formatter->parse($date);

And this is the previous test working with my answer.

<?php
echo "EN locale<br>\r\n";
$date="01/02/2015"; //2th Jan
$formatter = new IntlDateFormatter("en_US", IntlDateFormatter::SHORT, IntlDateFormatter::NONE);
$unixtime=$formatter->parse($date);
$datetime=new DateTime();
$datetime->setTimestamp($unixtime);
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d');
echo "<br>\r\n";

echo "IT locale<br>\r\n";
$date="01/02/2015"; //1th Feb
$formatter = new IntlDateFormatter("it_IT", IntlDateFormatter::SHORT, IntlDateFormatter::NONE);
$unixtime=$formatter->parse($date);
$datetime=new DateTime();
$datetime->setTimestamp($unixtime);
echo $datetime->format('Y-m-d');
echo "<br>\r\n";

Unfortunately I cannot earn my bounty... :-)

Answer 2

<?php
echo "EN locale<br>\r\n";
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'en_US');
$date="01/02/2015"; //2th Jan
$date_array=date_parse($date);
$mktime=mktime($date_array['hour'], $date_array['minute'], $date_array['second'], $date_array['month'], $date_array['day'], $date_array['year']);
$datetime=new DateTime($date);    
echo date("m/d/Y",$mktime);
echo "<br>\r\n";
echo $datetime->format('m/d/Y');
echo "<br>\r\n";

echo "IT locale<br>\r\n";
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'it_IT');
$date="01/02/2015"; //1th Feb
$date_array=date_parse($date);
$mktime=mktime($date_array['hour'], $date_array['minute'], $date_array['second'], $date_array['month'], $date_array['day'], $date_array['year']);
$datetime=new DateTime($date);    
echo date("d/m/Y",$mktime);
echo "<br>\r\n";
echo $datetime->format('d/m/Y');

These are the changes but you should be able to copy and paste the code above and it will work the way you want.

echo date("d/m/Y",$mktime);
echo date("m/d/Y",$mktime);
echo $datetime->format('m/d/Y');
echo $datetime->format('d/m/Y');

referance http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php