PHP Month year day selection drop down list to generate date format

In different forms we will be asking visitors to enter the date in an input field in a particular format. The better way is to ask the visitors to select month, date and year from a drop down list box. So the visitor can easily make the choice of date month and year. The drop down list box will contain only the valid items so there is no need to check the inputs again. We will try to create two drop down box for month and date and one text box for entering year. You can change the year text entry box to drop down list box with your options of years.

Date Validation

Note that we are not validating any inputs here and you can add them if required. You can check different validations using PHP here. 

We will use one form and inside that we will add all three form components to accept month date and year from the visitors. Using the three values entered by users we can create a date format which we can use in and SQL query to insert to any database or store. The format yyyy-mm-dd is used to store in a date field of mysql table. 

Please note that here the form is submitted to the same page and the variables are available for our use. If in your server settings global variables are set for OFF then you have to collect the form submitted values as $month= $_POST['month'] or in different ways based on the version of PHP you are running. Here is the demo of the drop down list box for date format. 

Select Month January February March April May June July August September October November December

Date 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

Year(yyyy)

The code for the above list boxes and the form is here.

<?Php
$todo=$_POST['todo'];
if(isset($todo) and $todo=="submit"){
$month=$_POST['month'];
$dt=$_POST['dt'];
$year=$_POST['year'];
$date_value="$month/$dt/$year";
echo "mm/dd/yyyy format :$date_value<br>";
$date_value="$year-$month-$dt";
echo "YYYY-mm-dd format :$date_value<br>";
}

?>
<form method=post name=f1 action=''><input type=hidden name=todo value=submit>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0" >
<tr><td  align=left  >   
<select name=month value=''>Select Month</option>
<option value='01'>January</option>
<option value='02'>February</option>
<option value='03'>March</option>
<option value='04'>April</option>
<option value='05'>May</option>
<option value='06'>June</option>
<option value='07'>July</option>
<option value='08'>August</option>
<option value='09'>September</option>
<option value='10'>October</option>
<option value='11'>November</option>
<option value='12'>December</option>
</select>

</td><td  align=left  >   
Date<select name=dt >
<option value='01'>01</option>


<option value='02'>02</option>
<option value='03'>03</option>
<option value='04'>04</option>
<option value='05'>05</option>
<option value='06'>06</option>
<option value='07'>07</option>
<option value='08'>08</option>
<option value='09'>09</option>
<option value='10'>10</option>
<option value='11'>11</option>
<option value='12'>12</option>
<option value='13'>13</option>
<option value='14'>14</option>
<option value='15'>15</option>
<option value='16'>16</option>
<option value='17'>17</option>
<option value='18'>18</option>
<option value='19'>19</option>
<option value='20'>20</option>
<option value='21'>21</option>
<option value='22'>22</option>
<option value='23'>23</option>
<option value='24'>24</option>
<option value='25'>25</option>
<option value='26'>26</option>
<option value='27'>27</option>
<option value='28'>28</option>
<option value='29'>29</option>
<option value='30'>30</option>
<option value='31'>31</option>
</select>


</td><td  align=left  >   
Year(yyyy)<input type=text name=year size=4 value=2005>
<input type=submit value=Submit>
</table>


</form>

Using Date picker

Instead of showing dropdown listbox and text box to enter date we can ask the user to select date from a window where a monthly calendar is shown. 

We can display calendar with browse button to navigate to different month and years.