- PHP date
- Introduction to the PHP date() function
- PHP date format parameters
- PHP date() function examples
- 1) Using the PHP date() function to show the current year example
- 2) Using the date() function to format a date for the MySQL database
- Summary
- date
- Parameters
- Return Values
- Errors/Exceptions
- Changelog
- Examples
- Notes
- See Also
- User Contributed Notes
PHP date
Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll learn how to use the PHP date() function to format a timestamp using a specified format.
Introduction to the PHP date() function
The date() function formats a timestamp using a specified format:
date(string $format, int|null $timestamp = null): stringCode language: PHP (php)The date() function has two parameters:
- $format is a string that determines how the $timestamp should be formatted.
- $timestamp is an Unix timestamp. The $timestamp parameter is optional. If you omit the $timestamp or use null , the it will default to the current timestamp. In other words, it defaults to the value of the time() function.
The date() function returns the formatted date string.
PHP date format parameters
To format a date, you use the following date format parameters:
| format character | Description | Example returned values |
|---|---|---|
| Day | — | — |
| d | 2 digits with leading zeros that represent the day of the month | 01 to 31 |
| D | Three letters that present the day name | Mon through Sun |
| j | Day of the month without leading zeros | 1 to 31 |
| l (lowercase ‘L’) | Full name of the day of the week’s | Sunday through Saturday |
| N | Day of the week in number according to ISO-8601 | 1 (for Monday) through 7 (for Sunday) |
| S | 2 characters that represent the ordinal suffix for the day of the month in English | st , nd , rd or th |
| w | A numeric day of the week | 0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday) |
| z | A numeric day of the year, starting from 0 | 0 through 365 |
| Week | — | — |
| W | Week number of the year in ISO-8601, weeks starting on Monday | Example: 3 (the 3rd week in the year) |
| Month | — | — |
| F | The full month name | January through December |
| m | The month number with leading zeros | 01 through 12 |
| M | Three characters that represent the month name | Jan through Dec |
| n | The month number without leading zero | 1 through 12 |
| t | The Number of days in a month | 28 through 31 |
| Year | — | — |
| L | Return 1 if it’s a leap year and zero otherwise | |
| o | ISO-8601 week-numbering year. This has the same value as Y , except that if the ISO week number ( W ) belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. | Examples: 1999 or 2003 |
| Y | A four-digit represents a year number | Examples: 2020 or 2021 |
| y | A two-digit representation of a year | Examples: 99 or 03 |
| Time | — | — |
| a | Lowercase am or pm | am or pm |
| A | Uppercase AM or PM | AM or PM |
| B | Swatch Internet time | 000 through 999 |
| g | 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 1 through 12 |
| G | 24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 0 through 23 |
| h | 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 01 through 12 |
| H | 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 00 through 23 |
| i | Minutes with leading zeros | 00 to 59 |
| s | Seconds with leading zeros | 00 through 59 |
| u | Microseconds. | Example: 654321 |
| v | Milliseconds. | Example: 654 |
| Timezone | — | — |
| e | Timezone identifier | Examples: UTC , GMT , Europe/Berlin |
| I (capital i) | Daylight Saving | 1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0 otherwise. |
| O | Difference to GMT without colon between hours and minutes | Example: +0200 |
| P | Difference to GMT with a colon between hours and minutes | Example: +02:00 |
| p | The same as P , but returns Z instead of +00:00 | Example: +02:00 |
| T | Timezone abbreviation | Examples: CEST , MDT … |
| Z | Timezone offset in seconds. | -43200 through 50400 |
| Full Date/Time | — | — |
| c | ISO 8601 date | 2021-07-14T13:38:04+02:00 |
| r | RFC 2822 formatted date | Wed, 14 Jul 2021 13:38:20 +0200 |
| U | Seconds since January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT (the Unix Epoch) |
PHP date() function examples
Let’s take some practical examples of using the date() function.
1) Using the PHP date() function to show the current year example
The following example uses the date() function to show how to display the current year:
echo date('Y');Code language: PHP (php)This is useful especially when you want to display the copyright on the footer of a website or a web application:
Copyright © echo date('Y') ?> - by phptutorial.net. All rights reserved.
2) Using the date() function to format a date for the MySQL database
To insert a date into a datetime column in the MySQL database, you use the following date format:
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SSCode language: PHP (php)In PHP, it’s equivalent to the following format:
Y-m-d H:i:sCode language: PHP (php) $created_at = date("Y-m-d H:i:s"); echo $created_at;Code language: PHP (php)2021-07-14 13:03:08Code language: PHP (php)Summary
date
Returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the given integer timestamp (Unix timestamp) or the current time if no timestamp is given. In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time() .
Unix timestamps do not handle timezones. Use the DateTimeImmutable class, and its DateTimeInterface::format() formatting method to format date/time information with a timezone attached.
Parameters
Note: date() will always generate 000000 as microseconds since it takes an int parameter, whereas DateTime::format() does support microseconds if DateTime was created with microseconds.
The optional timestamp parameter is an int Unix timestamp that defaults to the current local time if timestamp is omitted or null . In other words, it defaults to the value of time() .
Return Values
Returns a formatted date string.
Errors/Exceptions
Every call to a date/time function will generate a E_WARNING if the time zone is not valid. See also date_default_timezone_set()
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 8.0.0 | timestamp is nullable now. |
Examples
Example #1 date() examples
// set the default timezone to use.
date_default_timezone_set ( ‘UTC’ );
// Prints something like: Monday
echo date ( «l» );
// Prints something like: Monday 8th of August 2005 03:12:46 PM
echo date ( ‘l jS \of F Y h:i:s A’ );
// Prints: July 1, 2000 is on a Saturday
echo «July 1, 2000 is on a » . date ( «l» , mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , 7 , 1 , 2000 ));
/* use the constants in the format parameter */
// prints something like: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:28:57 -0700
echo date ( DATE_RFC2822 );
// prints something like: 2000-07-01T00:00:00+00:00
echo date ( DATE_ATOM , mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , 7 , 1 , 2000 ));
?>
You can prevent a recognized character in the format string from being expanded by escaping it with a preceding backslash. If the character with a backslash is already a special sequence, you may need to also escape the backslash.
Example #2 Escaping characters in date()
It is possible to use date() and mktime() together to find dates in the future or the past.
Example #3 date() and mktime() example
$tomorrow = mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , date ( «m» ) , date ( «d» )+ 1 , date ( «Y» ));
$lastmonth = mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , date ( «m» )- 1 , date ( «d» ), date ( «Y» ));
$nextyear = mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , date ( «m» ), date ( «d» ), date ( «Y» )+ 1 );
?>
Note:
This can be more reliable than simply adding or subtracting the number of seconds in a day or month to a timestamp because of daylight saving time.
Some examples of date() formatting. Note that you should escape any other characters, as any which currently have a special meaning will produce undesirable results, and other characters may be assigned meaning in future PHP versions. When escaping, be sure to use single quotes to prevent characters like \n from becoming newlines.
Example #4 date() Formatting
// Assuming today is March 10th, 2001, 5:16:18 pm, and that we are in the
// Mountain Standard Time (MST) Time Zone
$today = date ( «F j, Y, g:i a» ); // March 10, 2001, 5:16 pm
$today = date ( «m.d.y» ); // 03.10.01
$today = date ( «j, n, Y» ); // 10, 3, 2001
$today = date ( «Ymd» ); // 20010310
$today = date ( ‘h-i-s, j-m-y, it is w Day’ ); // 05-16-18, 10-03-01, 1631 1618 6 Satpm01
$today = date ( ‘\i\t \i\s \t\h\e jS \d\a\y.’ ); // it is the 10th day.
$today = date ( «D M j G:i:s T Y» ); // Sat Mar 10 17:16:18 MST 2001
$today = date ( ‘H:m:s \m \i\s\ \m\o\n\t\h’ ); // 17:03:18 m is month
$today = date ( «H:i:s» ); // 17:16:18
$today = date ( «Y-m-d H:i:s» ); // 2001-03-10 17:16:18 (the MySQL DATETIME format)
?>
To format dates in other languages, IntlDateFormatter::format() can be used instead of date() .
Notes
Note:
To generate a timestamp from a string representation of the date, you may be able to use strtotime() . Additionally, some databases have functions to convert their date formats into timestamps (such as MySQL’s » UNIX_TIMESTAMP function).
Timestamp of the start of the request is available in $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_TIME’] .
See Also
- DateTimeImmutable::__construct() — Returns new DateTimeImmutable object
- DateTimeInterface::format() — Returns date formatted according to given format
- gmdate() — Format a GMT/UTC date/time
- idate() — Format a local time/date part as integer
- getdate() — Get date/time information
- getlastmod() — Gets time of last page modification
- mktime() — Get Unix timestamp for a date
- IntlDateFormatter::format() — Format the date/time value as a string
- time() — Return current Unix timestamp
- Predefined DateTime Constants
User Contributed Notes
- Date/Time Functions
- checkdate
- date_add
- date_create_from_format
- date_create_immutable_from_format
- date_create_immutable
- date_create
- date_date_set
- date_default_timezone_get
- date_default_timezone_set
- date_diff
- date_format
- date_get_last_errors
- date_interval_create_from_date_string
- date_interval_format
- date_isodate_set
- date_modify
- date_offset_get
- date_parse_from_format
- date_parse
- date_sub
- date_sun_info
- date_sunrise
- date_sunset
- date_time_set
- date_timestamp_get
- date_timestamp_set
- date_timezone_get
- date_timezone_set
- date
- getdate
- gettimeofday
- gmdate
- gmmktime
- gmstrftime
- idate
- localtime
- microtime
- mktime
- strftime
- strptime
- strtotime
- time
- timezone_abbreviations_list
- timezone_identifiers_list
- timezone_location_get
- timezone_name_from_abbr
- timezone_name_get
- timezone_offset_get
- timezone_open
- timezone_transitions_get
- timezone_version_get