Leaf 5 — Utilities Reference

Anchor (Security Guard)

Anchor runs automatically in the background — you rarely interact with it directly.

What it does automatically:

• XSS protection — sanitizes all data coming through request(), session(), response(), etc.
• SQL injection protection — integrates with Leaf DB to auto-escape all query parameters
• CSRF — via the CSRF module (opt-in, see references/security.md)

Anchor's XSS and SQL protection only works with Leaf functions. If you use raw $_POST, $_GET, $_REQUEST, sanitize manually:

$data = anchor()->sanitize($_POST['data']);

Sanitization ≠ validation. Always validate data too — user input is evil and should never be trusted.

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Dates — tick()

leaf install date

Creating a Date

tick();                              // now
tick('2018-01-01 12:00:00');         // from string
tick(new DateTime('2018-01-01'));     // from DateTime object

Getting & Setting Values

// Getter (no arg) / Setter (with arg) — returns new tick object
tick()->year();           tick()->year(2018);
tick()->month();          tick()->month(6);
tick()->day();            tick()->day(15);        // day of month
tick()->hour();           tick()->hour(12);
tick()->minute();         tick()->minute(30);
tick()->second();         tick()->second(0);
tick()->millisecond();    tick()->millisecond(0);

// Generic get/set
tick()->get('year');
tick()->set('year', 2018);

Units reference:

Unit	Shorthand	Description
date	D	Day of month
day	d	Day of week (Sunday=0, Saturday=6)
month	M	Month (January=0, December=11)
year	y	Year
hour	h	Hour
minute	m	Minute
second	s	Second
millisecond	ms	Millisecond

Add & Subtract

tick()->add(1, 'day');
tick()->add(1, 'week');
tick()->add(3, 'month');
tick()->subtract(1, 'day');
tick()->subtract(2, 'year');

Add/subtract units: day, week, month, year, hour, minute, second, millisecond (shorthand also accepted)

Start & End Of

tick()->startOf('month');  // 2024-10-01 00:00:00
tick()->startOf('year');   // 2024-01-01 00:00:00
tick()->endOf('month');    // 2024-10-31 23:59:59
tick()->endOf('year');     // 2024-12-31 23:59:59

Available units: year, month, week, date/day, hour, minute, second

Chaining

tick()
    ->startOf('month')
    ->add(1, 'day')
    ->set('year', 2018)
    ->format('YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss');

Formatting

tick()->format();                          // ISO8601: '2024-10-03T18:04:37+00:00'
tick('2019-01-25')->format('DD/MM/YYYY');  // '25/01/2019'

// Escape text in format string with brackets
tick('2019-01-25')->format('[Today is] DD/MM/YYYY');  // 'Today is 25/01/2019'

Format tokens:

Token	Output	Description
YYYY	2024	4-digit year
YY	24	2-digit year
MMMM	January	Full month name
MMM	Jan	Abbreviated month
MM	01-12	Month, 2-digit
M	1-12	Month
DD	01-31	Day of month, 2-digit
D	1-31	Day of month
dddd	Sunday	Full day name
ddd	Sun	Short day name
dd	Su	Min day name
d	0-6	Day of week
HH	00-23	Hour, 24h, 2-digit
H	0-23	Hour, 24h
hh	01-12	Hour, 12h, 2-digit
h	1-12	Hour, 12h
mm	00-59	Minute, 2-digit
m	0-59	Minute
ss	00-59	Second, 2-digit
s	0-59	Second
SSS	000-999	Millisecond, 3-digit
A	AM/PM	AM/PM
a	am/pm	am/pm
Z	+01:00	UTC offset
ZZ	+0100	UTC offset (no colon)

Relative Time

tick('2014-10-01')->fromNow();              // '10 years ago'
tick('2027-10-04')->fromNow();              // 'in 3 years'
tick('2014-10-01')->fromNow(true);          // '10 years' (no ago/in)

tick('2014-10-01')->from('2015-10-01');     // '1 year ago'
tick('2015-10-01')->from('2014-10-01');     // 'in 1 year'
tick('2014-10-01')->from('2015-10-01', true); // '1 year' (no ago/in)

Comparisons

tick()->isBefore('2011-01-01');
tick()->isSame(new \DateTime('2011-01-01'));
tick()->isAfter('2011-01-01');

tick('2010-10-20')->isBetween('2010-10-19', new \DateTime('2010-10-25'));
tick('2010-10-20')->isBetweenOrEqual('2010-10-19', new \DateTime('2010-10-25'));
tick('2010-10-20')->isSameDay('2010-10-20');
tick('2010-10-20')->isSameMonth('2010-10-20');
tick('2010-10-20')->isSameYear('2010-10-20');
tick('2000-01-01')->isLeapYear();          // true
tick()->isDateTime('2000-01-01');          // false