CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpdatetime
avanwieringen
avanwieringen

Reputation: 2444

Call to undefined method DateTime::format but DateTime is working

I've gotten this really strange error all of a sudden in a legacy application we maintain.

Uncaught Error: Call to undefined method DateTime::format() in PATH/helpers.php:54

My relevant code is this:

function custom_date_format($str, $format=false){
    if(!$format){
        $format ="j M Y";
    }
    $date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d-m-Y', $str);
    if($date){
        return $date->format($format); // lineno 54
    }
    return '';
}

The server is running PHP 7 and DateTime::createFromFormat appears to be working so the DateTime object is working as it should.

It stopped working overnight (which I find really strange, and not sure if I believe it).

Any idea's of such strange errors?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2096

Answers (1)

avanwieringen
avanwieringen

Reputation: 2444

We figured it out and the answer is not at all satisfying:

The bug was not repeatable in a reliable way. It was there intermittent. That is already cause for suspicion.

After some digging there were more processes reporting erratic behavior and it appears that a memory problem is the root cause. After migrating to a 'fresh' server all the problems are gone.

So apparently the DateTime object was not fully allocated in a way? The format function pointer was overwritten or something. But the faulty memory was causing it.

Upvotes: 2

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