php remove slashes from date

Question

I have a function called convert which take in date (20140107) and replace the 4,2,2 position with a slash / (2014/01/07)for the date to be readable on the screen I will like to also remove the slashes before I sending it to the database In summary, this is what I am trying to do take a date of this form 2014/01/07 and convert it to 20140107

below is the convert function

function convert($date) 
{
  $numbers_only = preg_replace("/[^\d]/", "", $date);
  return preg_replace("/^1?(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})$/", "$1/$2/$3", $numbers_only);
}

Thank you in advance

Answer 1

Just use str_replace

function convert($date) 
{
  str_replace("/", "", $date);
}

Answer 2

It would be best to use a Datetime object as a middle man for this.

Create from format would allow you to create a Datetime without using string manipulation

http://uk1.php.net/manual/en/datetime.createfromformat.php

You can then use the format function to output it in the way that you prefer.

http://uk1.php.net/manual/en/datetime.format.php

Along the lines of...

$dateObj = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y/m/d', $date);
echo $dateObj->format('Ymd');

Answer 3

Just use str_replace() . Much simpler:

echo str_replace('/', '', $date);

Answer 4

You can use the built in PHP function str_replace() . So just call

return str_replace('/', null, $numbers_only);

Instead of

return preg_replace("/^1?(\d{4})(\d{2})(\d{2})$/", "$1/$2/$3", $numbers_only);

Answer 5

$originalDate = "2014/01/07";
$newDate = date("Ymd", strtotime($originalDate));
echo $newDate;