Date Rules

Date validation rules check date formats and date comparisons.

Rules Reference

Rule	Parameters	Example	Error Message
date	—	$v->rule('date', 'field')	{field} is not a valid date
dateFormat	format	$v->rule('dateFormat', 'field', 'Y-m-d')	{field} must be a valid date in the format {0}
dateBefore	date	$v->rule('dateBefore', 'field', '2024-12-31')	{field} must be a date before {0}
dateAfter	date	$v->rule('dateAfter', 'field', '2024-01-01')	{field} must be a date after {0}
past	reference?	$v->rule('past', 'field')	{field} must be a date in the past
future	reference?	$v->rule('future', 'field')	{field} must be a date in the future

Note: Parameters marked with ? are optional.

Notes

Accepted date formats: DateTime objects, ISO 8601 (2024-01-15), common formats (01/15/2024), Unix timestamps, anything parseable by strtotime().

Common format strings:

Format	Example
Y-m-d	2024-01-15
d/m/Y	15/01/2024
m/d/Y	01/15/2024
Y-m-d H:i:s	2024-01-15 14:30:00

Security: past and future reject relative strings like +1 week or tomorrow.

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Complete Examples

Valicomb supports two syntax styles: rule-based (map rules to fields) and field-based (map fields to rules).

Rule-Based Array Syntax

use Frostybee\Valicomb\Validator;

$v = new Validator($data);

$v->rules([
    'date' => [
        ['birth_date'],
        ['hire_date']
    ],
    'dateFormat' => [
        ['birth_date', 'Y-m-d'],
        ['event_time', 'Y-m-d H:i:s']
    ],
    'dateBefore' => [
        ['birth_date', '2010-01-01'],
        ['start_date', '2025-12-31']
    ],
    'dateAfter' => [
        ['end_date', '2024-01-01'],
        ['hire_date', '2000-01-01']
    ],
    'past' => [
        ['birth_date'],
        ['graduation_date']
    ],
    'future' => [
        ['appointment_date'],
        ['delivery_date']
    ]
]);

$v->validate();

Field-Based Mapping

use Frostybee\Valicomb\Validator;

$v = new Validator($data);

$v->mapManyFieldsToRules([
    'birth_date' => ['required', 'date', ['dateFormat', 'Y-m-d'], 'past'],
    'start_date' => ['required', 'date', ['dateBefore', '2025-12-31']],
    'end_date' => ['required', 'date', ['dateAfter', '2024-01-01']],
    'appointment_date' => ['required', 'date', 'future'],
    'event_datetime' => ['optional', ['dateFormat', 'Y-m-d H:i:s']],
    'graduation_date' => ['optional', 'date', 'past']
]);

$v->validate();