help with data validation

[abliss26]

hi everyone, I'm pretty new to php, and need some help with validating text passed to a php scrpt $id = $_POST["mydate"]; the text is submitted from an html format, and should only have the format of yyyy-mm-dd ; I'm sure you seasoned programmers know how to check this rather efficiently; thanks very much.

[dreamcatcher]

Why not have drop down menu`s for date, month & year?

You can then pop the variables together.

$date = $__POST['year'].'-'.$_POST['month'].'-'.$_POST['day'];

dc

[abliss26]

This would limit form options, but I would think that I would still want to validate this data in the php script?

[coopster]

True, you would always want to validate on the server-side.

$mydate = (isset($_POST['mydate'])) ? trim($_POST['mydate']) : ''; 
// Make sure the supplied date is in a yyyy-mm-dd format; if so, then  
// make sure the supplied date is a valid date. If either of the  
// edits is not TRUE, we have an invalid date, handle accordingly: 
if (!preg_match [php.net]("/^(\d{4})-(\d{2})-(\d{2})$/", $mydate, $date) ¦¦ 
    !checkdate [php.net]($date[2], $date[3], $date[1])) { 
 // Bad date! 
 // Or, you could initialize to a good date: 
 // $mydate = date [php.net]('Y-m-d'); 
}