When working with dates in PHP and Laravel, Carbon is the go-to library for manipulation and formatting. However, there's an important behavior to be aware of when parsing null values.

The Unexpected Behavior

If you pass null to Carbon::parse(), it will return a Carbon object with the current time instead of null:

use Carbon\Carbon;

// This returns a Carbon instance with the current time!
$date = Carbon::parse(null);
var_dump($date); // Carbon object with current timestamp

This can lead to subtle bugs in your application, especially when handling optional date fields that might be null.

A Safer Alternative: Carbon::make()

To handle null values more predictably, use Carbon::make() instead:

use Carbon\Carbon;

// This correctly returns null
$date = Carbon::make(null);
var_dump($date); // null

// For valid dates, it works the same as parse
$validDate = Carbon::make('2023-09-15 12:34:54');
var_dump($validDate); // Carbon instance with specified date

Real-world Example

Consider a scenario where you're retrieving a potentially null date from a database:

// Using parse (problematic)
$dueDate = Carbon::parse($user->due_date); // If due_date is null, this is now!

// Using make (safer)
$dueDate = Carbon::make($user->due_date); // If due_date is null, this stays null

Why This Matters

This behavior is particularly important when:

• Working with optional date fields
• Handling user input that might be empty
• Processing data imports with missing date values

Always use Carbon::make() instead of Carbon::parse() when the input might be null to avoid unexpected date values in your application.