- date: documentation ( source)
- strtotime: documentation ( source)
<?php
$str = 'Not Good';
// previous to PHP 5.1.0 you would compare with -1, instead of false
if (($timestamp = strtotime($str)) === false) {
echo "The string ($str) is bogus";
} else {
echo "$str == " . date('l dS \o\f F Y h:i:s A', $timestamp);
}