README

EDTF PHP is a small library for parsing, representing, and working with the Extended Date/Time Format specification.

Professional Wiki created and maintains EDTF. The Luxembourg Ministry of Culture funded the initial development. This library is an open-source project, so contributions are welcome! You can also commission software development via Professional Wiki.

• Usage
  • Parsing
  • Validating
  • Humanizing
  • Object model
• EDTF support and limits
• Installation
• Development
• Release notes

Usage

Parsing

$parser = \EDTF\EdtfFactory::newParser();
$parsingResult = $parser->parse('1985-04-12T23:20:30');
$parsingResult->isValid(); // true
$parsingResult->getEdtfValue(); // \EDTF\EdtfValue
$parsingResult->getInput(); // '1985-04-12T23:20:30'

Validating

$validator = \EDTF\EdtfFactory::newValidator();
$validator->isValidEdtf('1985-04-12T23:20:30'); // true

Humanizing

$humanizer = \EDTF\EdtfFactory::newHumanizerForLanguage( 'en' );
$humanizer->humanize($edtfValue); // string

Object model

$edtfValue->getMax(); // int
$edtfValue->getMin(); // int
$edtfValue->covers(\EDTF\EdtfValue $anotherValue); // bool

$edtfDate->getYear(); // int
$edtfDate->isOpenInterval(); // bool
$edtfDate->getQualification(); // \EDTF\Qualification

EDTF support and limits

All level 0, 1 and 2 EDTF formats can be parsed and represented, except for:

• Open ranges with a date (Level 2: Qualification): ..2004-06-01/2004-06-20 (This is supported: ../2004-06-20)

Humanization has more limits:

• Significant digits (EDTF level 2): 1950S2 (some year between 1900 and 1999, estimated to be 1950)
• Group Qualification (EDTF level 2): 2004-06~-11 (year and month approximate)
• Qualification of Individual Component (EDTF level 2): ?2004-06-~11 (year uncertain; month known; day approximate)
• Level 2 Unspecified Digit: 1XXX-1X (October, November, or December during the 1000s)

Installation

To use the EDTF library in your project, simply add a dependency on professional-wiki/edtf to your project's composer.json file. Here is a minimal example of a composer.json file that just defines a dependency on EDTF 3.x:

{
    "require": {
        "professional-wiki/edtf": "~3.0"
    }
}

Development

Start by installing the project dependencies by executing

composer update

You can run the tests by executing

make test

You can run style checks and static analysis by executing

make cs

To run all CI checks, execute

make

You can also invoke PHPUnit directly to pass it arguments, as follows

vendor/bin/phpunit --filter SomeClassNameOrFilter

Release notes

Version 3.1.0 - 2025-09-23

• Added support for installation with a newer version of a used date time library (nesbot/carbon 3.x)
• Improved translations

Version 3.0.2 - 2025-05-12

• Improved translations

Version 3.0.1 - 2024-05-03

• Fixed "Undefined array key" warning when combining approximation qualifiers
• Improved translations

Version 3.0.0 - 2023-01-18

Functional changes:

• Improved humanization of uncertain and approximate dates
• Improved capitalization in humanization, especially for French
• Various translation updates from TranslateWiki, improving humanization for many languages
• Added support for pluralization in humanization, for use by TranslateWiki

Breaking API changes:

• Removed parameter of ExtDate::uncertain
• Removed parameter of ExtDate::approximate
• Renamed FrenchStrategy to DefaultStrategy
• Made Qualification constructor arguments required

Further API changes:

• Deprecated ExtDate::uncertain in favour of ExtDate::isUncertain
• Deprecated ExtDate::approximate in favour of ExtDate::isApproximate
• Added Qualification::newFullyKnown
• Added Qualification::isFullyKnown
• Added Qualification::dayIsKnown
• Added Qualification::monthIsKnown
• Added Qualification::yearIsKnown
• Added Qualification::isUncertain, replacing Qualification::uncertain
• Added Qualification::dayIsUncertain
• Added Qualification::monthIsUncertain
• Added Qualification::yearIsUncertain
• Added Qualification::isApproximate, replacing Qualification::approximate
• Added Qualification::dayIsApproximate
• Added Qualification::monthIsApproximate
• Added Qualification::yearIsApproximate
• Added Qualification::isUniform
• Added Qualification::monthAndYearHaveTheSameQualification
• Added ExtDate::isUniformlyQualified

Version 2.0.2 - 2022-04-29

• Improved translations

Version 2.0.1 - 2022-02-19

• ? is no longer recognized as valid date

Version 2.0.0 - 2021-04-28

• Fixed performance issue for sets with large range elements like 1000-01-01..2000-12-30
• Fixed humanization of sets with more than one element, of which at least one an open range
• Improved humanization of sets with range elements like 2000..2010
• Intervals and set ranges with end dates earlier than their start dates are now rejected
• Various breaking changes to the Set class
  • Constructor signature changed
  • Removed hasOpenStart and hasOpenEnd
  • Removed isSingleElement
• Added Set::isEmpty
• Added Set::getElements
• Added SetElement interface with implementations
  • OpenSetElement
  • RangeSetElement
  • SingleDateSetElement
• ExtDate::precision and Season::precision are now guaranteed to return an integer
• precisionAsString in ExtDate and Season is now guaranteed to return a non-empty string

Version 1.3.0 - 2021-04-26

• Fixed season support in intervals
• Fixed parsing of open sets with an extra space like { ..2021} (thanks @chaudbak)
• Added ExtDate::iso8601 and ExtDateTime::iso8601 (thanks @seth-shaw-unlv)
• Added ParsingResult::getErrorMessage

Version 1.2.0 - 2021-04-16

• Improved humanization of open sets

Version 1.1.0 - 2021-03-20

• Added internationalization to the StructuredHumanizer service
• Fixed handling of "year 0"

Version 1.0.0 - 2021-03-19

• Initial release with
  • Support for EDTF levels 0, 1 and 2
  • Parsing
  • Object model
  • Internationalized humanization
  • Validation service
  • Example data