What are the best practices for handling date calculations in PHP to ensure accurate results, especially when considering leap years?

When handling date calculations in PHP, it's important to consider leap years to ensure accurate results. One way to do this is by using PHP's built-in date functions like checkdate() to validate dates and date_create() to create date objects that can handle leap years correctly. Additionally, using the DateTime class and its methods can help with accurate date calculations.

// Example of handling date calculations with leap years in PHP
$date = date_create('2024-02-29'); // Create a date object for a leap year
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d'); // Output: 2024-02-29