Mariabdb Avoid Invalid datetime format: when date is empty

When inserting records any columns with a datatype set to date which are empty will generate this error:

SQLSTATE[22007]: Invalid datetime format: 1292 Incorrect datetime

The reason for this by default MariaDB’s sql mode has NO_ZERO_DATE which won’t allow zero dates to be entered only valid or null is allowed.

You have 2 options here:

I’ve chosen to leave the default in place and always pass null for empty dates, ternary operators make this simple:

$startDate = ($startDate !='') ? date('Y-m-d', strtotime($startDate)) : null;

The above says if the date is not empty then convert the date into the correct format otherwise pass null.