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DrupalDateTime (and possibly DateTimePlus) relative comparison is broken in PHP 7.3 using relational operators, but DateTime relative comparison is working as intended

Open on Drupal.org →
Created on 29 May 2019, about 6 years ago
Updated 28 May 2024, about 1 year ago

The comparison of two DrupalDateTime object instances using relational operators in PHP 7.3 does not produce the same result as two regular DateTime object instances in some circumstances. See the following example:

use Drupal\Core\Datetime\DrupalDateTime;

$dt_now = new DateTime();
$dt_past = new DateTime('-1 day');
$ddt_now = new DrupalDateTime();
$ddt_past = new DrupalDateTime('-1 day');

var_export($dt_past->format('F a')); // "May pm"
var_export($dt_now < $dt_past); // false
var_export($dt_now->format('c')); // 2019-05-29T15:43:02-04:00
var_export($dt_past->format('c')); // 2019-05-28T15:43:02-04:00

var_export($ddt_past->format('F a')); // "May pm"
var_export($ddt_now < $ddt_past); // true
var_export($ddt_now->format('c')); // 2019-05-29T15:43:02-04:00
var_export($ddt_past->format('c')); // 2019-05-28T15:43:02-04:00

In PHP 7.3, the relative comparison of user-defined objects results in the recursive, short-circuit comparison of each instance property's value (see this link). Considering this information, it logically follows that $ddt_past->format('F a') should then cause $ddt_now->formatTranslationCache[] to alter how the $ddt_past object instance is compared with other instances of the same type.

Ideally, DrupalDateTime (and DateTimePlus) should behave identically to DateTime with respect to the use of relational operators to compare two object instances.

📌 Task
Status

Closed: outdated

Version

11.0 🔥

Component
Datetime  →

Last updated 5 days ago

Created by

🇺🇸United States clayfreeman Paragould, AR

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  • PHP 7.3

    The issue particularly affects sites running on PHP version 7.3.0 or later.

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  • Comment about 1 year ago →
    🇳🇿New Zealand quietone

    @clayfreeman, thanks for pointing this problem out and providing a patch.

    This issue is about a problem with PHP 7.3, which is EOL and is not used by a currently supported version of Drupal. Therefore I am closing this issue.

  • Status changed to Active about 1 year ago
  • Comment about 1 year ago →
    🇬🇧United Kingdom jonathanshaw Stroud, UK

    @quietone I don't see any discussion in this issue about whether this is or is not a problem with php 7.4+ or php 8. Maybe it was first reported when php 7.3 was the current version of php. The test coverage provided in the patch would seem useful even if it was not a current problem.

  • Comment about 1 month ago →
    🇬🇧United Kingdom alexpott 🇪🇺🌍

    The problem is that the same date with different langcodes will not compare correctly. PHP's built \DateTime does compare properly and if it was the only property on our DateTimePlus objects then they would compare correctly too. But it's not so that don't and there is nothing we can do about this. I do think we should add a compare method to make things simpler...

    Something like:

      public function compare(DateTimePlus|\DateTime $datetime2, string $operator): bool {
    if ($datetime2 instanceof DateTimePlus) {
      $datetime2 = $datetime2->dateTimeObject;
    }
    return match ($operator) {
      '<' => $this->dateTimeObject < $datetime2,
      '<=' => $this->dateTimeObject <= $datetime2,
      '>' => $this->dateTimeObject > $datetime2,
      '>=' => $this->dateTimeObject >= $datetime2,
      '==' => $this->dateTimeObject == $datetime2,
      '!=' => $this->dateTimeObject != $datetime2,
    };
  }

    One thing that will catch people out is that if the the dates have the same langcode then object comparison will work as a user expects and therefore I'd guess that we see a lot of date comparison in custom and contrib.

  • Comment about 1 month ago →
    🇫🇷France andypost

    There's PHP RFC https://wiki.php.net/rfc/drop_32bit_support to drop some date-functions

  • Comment about 1 month ago →
    🇺🇸United States neclimdul Houston, TX

    I thought the discussion on the mailing list was to not touch the functions and just drop the 32bit support

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