How to use PHP constants correctly post PHP 7.2? [duplicate]

Question

I am using some of the available constants in PHP to show the date and time in a particular format:

$created_date=date(Y.'-'.m.'-'.d.'\T'.H.':'.i.':'.s.'\Z',$created_timestamp);

Since updating from PHP 7.1 to 7.4, I get the following messages in the log file:

PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant Y - assumed 'Y' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP)

PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant m - assumed 'm' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP)

PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant d - assumed 'd' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP)

PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant H - assumed 'H' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP)

PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant i - assumed 'i' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP) PHP Warning: Use of undefined constant s - assumed 's' (this will throw an Error in a future version of PHP)

I can't seem to find any documentation (or ideally) examples of how I could update my code to get rid of this problem.

Thanks for any help

These aren't meant to be constants, but strings. See the docs for examples. — Alex Howansky
– Alex Howansky, Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 14:19
print date('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z'); note that the "constants" are actually parts of the string — Mm-Art-In
– Mm-Art-In, Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 14:20
Just goes to show, developing with Error Reporting turned OFF is a great idea NOT — RiggsFolly
– RiggsFolly, Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 14:22
"assumed 'Y'" is your hint. date(y.'-'.m.'-'.d) is assumed as: date('y'.'-'.'m'.'-'.'d')->date('y-m-d'). The code in the Q is wrong but works becasue of a quirck. The error is becasue the quirck no longer works — Martijn
– Martijn, Commented Feb 11, 2021 at 14:24

MatsLindh · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-11 14:20:52Z

5

This change is not from 7.2 - it's probably just that you have a different error reporting setting now. The values you're attempting to use aren't constants in PHP at all, but when you've had a different error reporting setting you haven't gotten the warning about them not being constants - and they've just been used as strings instead.

The correct way to use date is to just send the formatting string in directly:

$created_date = date('Y-m-d\TH:i:s\Z', $created_timestamp);

If you're trying to create an iso8601 timestamp, you can use the DATE_ATOM constant as well (it'll probably use +00:00 instead of Z).

answered Feb 11, 2021 at 14:20

MatsLindh

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