Date handling in Laravel is never much easier than before. You can now cast in Eloquent using the $cast variable. The date handling is one of the trickiest things in the programming world.
Date Time Problems
Date and time are vital! We always wake up with the clock, do business and go to bed by looking at them. Our internet bills, credit card payments and salaries are also with time.
"Time is money" - a phrase that holds even today, especially for businesses. We handle our time to make or break the success of our ventures. It's a critical aspect that demands our attention.
The impact part of Date handling
The date handling has four parts: input, storage, processing and output. We receive or create a new date, store it, process it and display or print it as an output, sometimes as electronic mail. We start with the date handling on storage.
Storage
Storage is the simple way to start because many database supports it. I mainly work with MySQL and can create a timestamp field in the database. If we set the current timestamp as default and put nothing, the current time is in our database.
Processing
Our dates need to be processed. We need to convert them for displaying, setting the bill, etc. For example, we need to subtract from time b to time a for an internet bill. We convert the timezone and display the format like d/M/Y or M/d/Y format.
Output
When displaying a date time variable, we have to make that variable convertible from one format to another. The solution is Carbon. Carbon lets us convert from one format to another and does time calculations.
Input
The primary part of the date-handling process is the input. The user will input the date manually, which will cause human errors. Your app needs to handle the dates by using both validation and sanitization. Otherwise, your data will get an error, and your client will see a 500 error page instead of the working page.
Conclusion
Laravel has the full features of date casting, and the Carbon package will help you do the job with less effort. Cast the variable, Write the Validation Rule, and your casting is complete. You can output using a very comfortable format function. Refer to Laravel documentation for how to handle the date and how to process the date.
