DateTime is an extension of PHP's \DateTimeImmutable class with additional helper methods, and variations to deal with (a) dates containing no time information and (b) standardized objects based on the UTC timezone.

This project aims for simplicity of use and any contribution towards that goal - whether a bug report, modifications to the codebase, or an improvement to the accuracy or readability of the documentation - are always welcome.

Documentation

This library provides three classes (Date, DateTime, and UtcDateTime) and two interfaces (DateInterface and DateTimeInterface).

Darsyn\DateTime\DateTimeInterface (henceforth DTI) provides two new helpers methods (in addition to those found on \DateTimeImmutable):

• DTI's createFromObject(\DateTimeInterface $datetime): static is the same as \DateTimeImmutable::createFromMutable() but works with any object that implements \DateTimeInterface.
• DTI's createFromTimestamp(int $timestamp, ?\DateTimeZone $tz): static creates a DTI object from an integer timestamp (and optional timezone, meaning identical timestamps using different timezones will result in differing date strings).

On top of these, DTI objects can be stringified into a format appropriate to the calling class, and when JSON-enoded returns that string instead of {"date","timezone_type","timezone"} objects. The string formats are as follows:

Class	Format	Example
Date	Y-m-d	2018-12-19
DateTime	Y-m-d\TH:i:sP	2018-12-19T14:03:24+01:00
UtcDateTime	Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z	2018-12-19T13:03:24Z

The DateTime object will handle automatic conversions between timezones. For example, if you supply a datetime string which includes a timezone (such as 2019-01-09T12:34:56+04:30 which is Afghanistan time) and supply a differing timezone object (such as Australia/Perth) the date will automatically get converted correctly into the timezone of the supplied object (in this example, 2019-01-09T16:04:56+08:00).

<?php

$dateString = '2019-01-09T12:34:56+04:30';
$timezone = new \DateTimeZone('Australia/Perth');
$datetime = new DateTime($dateString, $timezone);
echo $datetime; // string(24) "2019-01-09T16:04:56+08:00"

Brief Example

<?php

use Darsyn\DateTime\UtcDateTime;

try {
    $datetime = (string) UtcDateTime::createFromFormat(
        'l, jS F, Y (g:ia)', 
        'Wednesday, 9th May, 2018 (3:34pm)',
        new \DateTimeZone('Australia/Perth')
    );
    echo $datetime; // string(20) "2018-05-09T07:34:00Z"
} catch (\InvalidArgumentException $e) {
    exit('Could not construct object; value does not conform to date format.');
}

Doctrine Integration

<?php

use Darsyn\DateTime\Doctrine\UtcDateType;
use Doctrine\DBAL\Types\Type;

Type::addType('utc', UtcDateType::class);

Symfony Parameter Converter Integration

If you are using Symfony's FrameworkExtra bundle, a parameter converter is included to automatically convert dates in the URL into UtcDateTime objects.

You need to type-hint with Darsyn\DateTime\DateTimeInterface (or anything that implements it), and the URL segment must be in UTC or RFC 3339 format (e.g. 2018-12-19T13:03:24Z or 2018-12-19t14:03:24+0100).

services:

    darsyn.datetime.param_converter:
        class: 'Darsyn\DateTime\ParamConverter\UtcDateTimeConverter'
        tags:
            - name: 'request.param_converter'
              converter: 'darsyn_utc_converter'

License

Please see the separate license included in this repository for a full copy of the MIT license, which this project is licensed under.

Authors

• Zan Baldwin

If you make a contribution (submit a pull request), don't forget to add your name here!