PHP Date and Time
The PHP Date() Function
The PHP date() function is used to format a date and/or a time.
The PHP date() function formats a timestamp to a more readable date and time.
A timestamp is a sequence of characters, denoting the date and/or time at which a certain event occurred.Default is the current date and time. it is optional.
Get a Date
The required format parameter of the date() function specifies how to format the date (or time). Here are some characters that are commonly used for dates:
Here are some characters that are commonly used for dates:
- d - Represents the day of the month (01 to 31)
- m - Represents a month (01 to 12)
- Y - Represents a year (in four digits)
- l (lowercase 'L') - Represents the day of the week
Other characters, like"/", ".", or "-" can also be inserted between the characters to add additional formatting.
<?php
echo "Today is " . date("Y/m/d") . "
";
echo "Today is " . date("Y.m.d") . "
";
echo "Today is " . date("Y-m-d") . "
";
echo "Today is " . date("l");
?>
PHP Tip - Automatic Copyright Year
Use the date() function to automatically update the copyright year on your website:
© 2010-<?php echo date("Y");?>
Get a Time
Here are some characters that are commonly used for times.
- H - 24-hour format of an hour (00 to 23)
- h - 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros (01 to 12)
- i - Minutes with leading zeros (00 to 59)
- s - Seconds with leading zeros (00 to 59)
- a - Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem (am or pm)
The example below outputs the current time in the specified format. the PHP date() function will return the current date/time of the server!
<?php
echo "The time is " . date("h:i:sa");
?> code to be executed;
Get Your Time Zone
If the time you got back from the code is not correct, it's probably because your server is in another country or set up for a different timezone.So, if you need the time to be correct according to a specific location, you can set the timezone you want to use.
<?php
date_default_timezone_set("America/New_York");
echo "The time is " . date("h:i:sa");
?>
Create a Date With mktime()
The optional timestamp parameter in the date() function specifies a timestamp. If omitted, the current date and time will be used (as in the examples above).
The PHP mktime() function returns the Unix timestamp for a date. The Unix timestamp contains the number of seconds between the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) and the time specified.
Syntax
mktime(hour, minute, second, month, day, year) The example below creates a date and time with the date() function from a number of parameters in the mktime() function:
<?php
$d=mktime(11, 14, 54, 8, 12, 2014);
echo "Created date is " . date("Y-m-d h:i:sa", $d);
?>
Create a Date From a String With strtotime()
The PHP strtotime() function is used to convert a human readable date string into a Unix timestamp (the number of seconds since January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT).
its Syntax is strtotime(time, now)
<?php
$d=strtotime("10:30pm April 15 2014");
echo "Created date is " . date("Y-m-d h:i:sa", $d);
?>
PHP is quite clever about converting a string to a date, so you can put in various values. However, strtotime() is not perfect, so remember to check the strings you put in there.
<?php
$d=strtotime("tomorrow");
echo date("Y-m-d h:i:sa", $d) . "
";
$d=strtotime("next Saturday");
echo date("Y-m-d h:i:sa", $d) . "
";
$d=strtotime("+3 Months");
echo date("Y-m-d h:i:sa", $d) . "
";
?>
More Date Examples
The example below outputs the dates for the next six Saturdays:
<?php
$startdate = strtotime("Saturday");
$enddate = strtotime("+6 weeks", $startdate);
while ($startdate < $enddate) {
echo date("M d", $startdate) . "
";
$startdate = strtotime("+1 week", $startdate);
}
?>
The example below outputs the number of days until 4th of July:
<?php
$d1=strtotime("July 04");
$d2=ceil(($d1-time())/60/60/24);
echo "There are " . $d2 ." days until 4th of July.";
?>
