What are the potential pitfalls of using strtotime() with a German date format in PHP?

When using strtotime() with a German date format in PHP, potential pitfalls may arise due to the different date format conventions between German and English. To solve this issue, you can use the date_create_from_format() function to explicitly specify the date format expected in the input string.

$dateString = '31.12.2021';
$date = date_create_from_format('d.m.Y', $dateString);
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d');