title: How to stop an invalid date from being sent to a database
body: <p>I require a date to be entered in the correct format, and if it isn't then an error is shown. My PHP program looks like this:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    if (empty($_POST["date"])) {
        $dateErr = "Date is required";
           } else {
             $date = test_input($_POST["date"]); etc
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is just the standard way of showing error for an improper date format. But my problem is that even though an error is shown, there is nothing that is stopping that date (in the wrong format) from being passed into the database. When I check my database, I see that date and it is not what I want. Is there a way that a date written in the wrong format can be blocked from ending up on my database? Like a filter, I mean.</p>