PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor (original) (raw)

date

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

date — Format a Unix timestamp

Description

Parameters

format

Format accepted by DateTimeInterface::format().

Note: date() will always generate000000 as microseconds since it takes an int parameter, whereas DateTimeInterface::format() does support microseconds if an object of typeDateTimeInterface was created with microseconds.

timestamp

The optional timestamp parameter is anint Unix timestamp that defaults to the current local time if timestamp is omitted or [null](reserved.constants.php#constant.null). In other words, it defaults to the value of time().

Return Values

Returns a formatted date string.

Changelog

Version	Description
8.0.0	timestamp is nullable now.

Examples

Example #1 date() examples

<?php // 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()

<?php // prints something like: Wednesday the 15th echo date('l \t\h\e jS'); ?>

It is possible to use date() andmktime() together to find dates in the future or the past.

Example #3 date() and mktime() example

<?php $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

<?php // 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).

Found A Problem?

holdmann at yandex dot ru ¶

1 month ago

`Despite of the fact that $timestamp according to description by default is null the result of function w/o second parameter and null as second parameter differs

string(14) "20250408142831" var_dump(date('YmdHis', null)); -> string(14) "19700101030000" ?>

It's discouraging