A non well formed numeric value encountered

Question

I have a form that passes two dates (start and finish) to a PHP script that will add those to a DB. I am having problems validating this. I keep getting the following error:

A non well formed numeric value encountered

This is when I use the following

date("d",$_GET['start_date']);

Answer 1

This error means you are trying to use a string that contains a non-numeric value where only a number is expected.

Like in your case: date() expects a number (a unix timestamp) while you are passing a string, something like 2020-10-10 or 2020/10/10.

Every time you encounter such a problem you must investigate it. First of all, print the problem value using var_dump(). Then you must decide, what to do next.

• if you are accessing a wrong variable, like some function returns an array but you are trying to use it as a number, use var_dump() result to learn the array's structure and to find the right element to use.
• if the problem value can be converted to a number, then do it. Like in your case, use strtotime() to convert a string date representation to a number of seconds
• if it cannot be converted, being plainly wrong, you need to fix the cause:
  • if the problem value is coming from outside, like, in the form field named 'age' someone enters twenty two, you need to validate the entered value, check if it's indeed a number and stop the form processing in case it's not, and inform the user that entered data is invalid
  • if some your function returns incorrect value, like, $22 instead of 22, you must fix that function or change the logic of your application: you must do all calculations first, and format the numbers later.

What you should never do is just mindlessly cast the problem value to a number, as suggested in some answers. Casting won't fix the problem. It will just sweep it under the rug and often will give you outright incorrect value. Besides, casting effectively works as error suppression, so when some your function will start returning incorrect value, casting will start silently returning 0, leaving you unaware of the problem.

Answer 2

This error occurs when you perform calculations with variables that use letters combined with numbers (alphanumeric), for example 24kb, 886ab ...

I had the error in the following function

function get_config_bytes($val) {
    $val = trim($val);
    $last = strtolower($val[strlen($val)-1]);       
    switch($last) {
        case 'g':
            $val *= 1024;
        case 'm':
            $val *= 1024;
        case 'k':
            $val *= 1024;
    }
    return $this->fix_integer_overflow($val);
}

The application uploads images but it didn't work, it showed the following warning:

Solution: The intval() function extracts the integer value of a variable with alphanumeric data and creates a new variable with the same value but converted to an integer with the intval() function. Here is the code:

function get_config_bytes($val) {
    $val = trim($val);
    $last = strtolower($val[strlen($val)-1]);
    $intval = intval(trim($val));
    switch($last) {
        case 'g':
            $intval *= 1024;
        case 'm':
            $intval *= 1024;
        case 'k':
            $intval *= 1024;
    }
    return $this->fix_integer_overflow($intval);
}

The function fix_integer_overflow

// Fix for overflowing signed 32 bit integers,
// works for sizes up to 2^32-1 bytes (4 GiB - 1):
protected function fix_integer_overflow($size) {
    if ($size < 0) {
        $size += 2.0 * (PHP_INT_MAX + 1);
    }
    return $size;
}

Answer 3

$_GET['start_date'] is not numeric is my bet, but an date format not supported by strtotime. You will need to re-format the date to a workable format for strtotime or use combination of explode/mktime.

I could add you an example if you'd be kind enough to post the format you currently receive.

Answer 4

I ran into this same situation (in my case with a date value in a custom PHP field in a Drupal view), and what worked for me was using intval instead of strtotime to turn the value into an integer - because it basically was a timestamp, but in the form of a string rather than an integer. Obviously that won't be the case for everyone, but it might be worth a try.

Answer 5

This helped me a lot:

$new_date = date_format(date_create($old_date), 'Y-m-d');

Here, date_create() provides you a date object for a given date & date_format() will set it in a given format.

for example,

<?php
    $date = date_create("13-02-2013");  // DateTime Object ( [date] => 2013-02-13 00:00:00.000000 [timezone_type] => 3 [timezone] => America/New_York )
    echo date_format($date,"Y-m-d");    // 2013-02-13
?>

Answer 6

This is an old question, but there is another subtle way this message can happen. It's explained pretty well here, in the docs.

Imagine this scenerio:

try {
  // code that triggers a pdo exception
} catch (Exception $e) {
  throw new MyCustomExceptionHandler($e);
}

And MyCustomExceptionHandler is defined roughly like:

class MyCustomExceptionHandler extends Exception {
  public function __construct($e) {
    parent::__construct($e->getMessage(), $e->getCode());
  }
}

This will actually trigger a new exception in the custom exception handler because the Exception class is expecting a number for the second parameter in its constructor, but PDOException might have dynamically changed the return type of $e->getCode() to a string.

A workaround for this would be to define you custom exception handler like:

class MyCustomExceptionHandler extends Exception {
  public function __construct($e) {
    parent::__construct($e->getMessage());
    $this->code = $e->getCode();
  }
}

Answer 7

if $_GET['start_date'] is a string then convert it in integer or double to deal numerically.

$int = (int) $_GET['start_date']; //Integer
$double = (double) $_GET['start_date']; //It takes in floating value with 2 digits

Answer 8

in the name of the universe programmer

in my case i receive this error

"Notice: A non well formed numeric value encountered in"

my code with above error:

$end_suggest_time = $rowone['start_suggest_time'] + (24 * 3600);

when i add (int) in the previous of $rowone['start_suggest_time'] I don't receive this error

"Notice: A non well formed numeric value encountered in"

$end_suggest_time = (int) $rowone['start_suggest_time'] + (24 * 3600);

Answer 9

In my case when getting error:

A non well formed numeric value encountered

When my code is like this

if (date('y-m-d H:i:s') - $user_token['created_at'] < (60 * 60 * 24)) {
...
}

And my fixing code

date_default_timezone_set('Asia/Jakarta');
if (strtotime(date('y-m-d H:i:s')) - strtotime($user_token['created_at']) < (60 * 60 * 24)) {
...
}

Answer 10

<td>{{(double)$template_list->administrative_approval - (double)$template_list->released_fund }} </td>

(double),(int) use its.