PHP date()
Function
The PHP date() function is used to format the time/date.
PHP date() Function
The PHP date() function formats a timestamp into a more readable date and time.
Syntax
string date ( string $format [, int $timestamp ] )
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
format | Required. Specifies the format of the timestamp. |
timestamp | Optional. Specifies the timestamp. Default is the current date and time. |
PHP Date() - Formatting Dates
The first required parameter, format, of the date() function specifies how to format the date/time.
Here are some available characters:
- d - Represents the day of the month (01 - 31)
- m - Represents the month (01 - 12)
- Y - Represents the year (four digits)
For a complete list of available characters for the format parameter, please refer to our PHP Date reference manual, date() function.
Additional characters, like "/", ".", or "-", can be inserted between the letters to add extra formatting:
<?php
echo date("Y/m/d") . "<br>";
echo date("Y.m.d") . "<br>";
echo date("Y-m-d");
?>
The output of the above code is as follows:
2016/10/21
2016.10.21
2016-10-21
format character | Description | Example Return Values |
---|---|---|
Day | --- | --- |
d | Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros | 01 to 31 |
D | Day of the week, text representation, 3 letters | Mon to Sun |
j | Day of the month without leading zeros | 1 to 31 |
l (lowercase 'L') | A full textual representation of the day of the week | Sunday to Saturday |
N | ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week (added in PHP 5.1.0) | 1 (for Monday) to 7 (for Sunday) |
S | English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters | st, nd, rd, or th. Works well with j |
w | Numeric representation of the day of the week | 0 (for Sunday) to 6 (for Saturday) |
z | The day of the year | 0 to 365 |
Week | --- | --- |
W | ISO-8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday (added in PHP 4.1.0) | Example: 42 (the 42nd week of the year) |
Month | --- | --- |
F | A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March | January to December |
m | Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros | 01 to 12 |
M | A short textual representation of a month, three letters | Jan to Dec |
n | Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros | 1 to 12 |
t | Number of days in the given month | 28 to 31 |
Year | --- | --- |
L | Whether it's a leap year | 1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise |
o | ISO-8601 year number. 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. (added in PHP 5.1.0) | Examples: 1999 or 2003 |
Y | A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits | Examples: 1999 or 2003 |
y | A two-digit representation of a year | Examples: 99 or 03 |
Time | --- | --- |
a | Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | am or pm |
A | Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | AM or PM |
B | Swatch Internet time | 000 to 999 |
g | 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 1 to 12 |
G | 24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 0 to 23 |
h | 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 01 to 12 |
H | 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 00 to 23 |
i | Minutes with leading zeros | 00 to 59 |
s | Seconds, with leading zeros | 00 to 59 |
u | Microseconds (added in PHP 5.2.2). Note that the date() function will always return 000000 as it only accepts an integer, whereas DateTime::format() does support microseconds. | Example: 654321 |
Timezone | --- | --- |
e | Timezone identifier (Added in PHP 5.1.0) | Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores |
I | Daylight saving time | 1 if it is daylight saving time, otherwise 0 |
O | Difference to Greenwich time in hours | Examples: +0200 |
P | Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with colon between hours and minutes (Added in PHP 5.1.3) | Examples: +02:00 |
T | Timezone abbreviation of the machine | Examples: EST, MDT (Note: In Windows, it is in full text format, such as "Eastern Standard Time", Chinese version will display "China Standard Time") |
Z | Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive. | -43200 to 43200 |
Full Date/Time | --- | --- |
c | ISO 8601 date format (Added in PHP 5) | 2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00 |
r | RFC 822 date format | Examples: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200 |
U | Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) | See time() |
Complete PHP Date Reference Manual
For a complete reference manual of all date functions, please visit our Complete PHP Date Reference Manual.
This reference manual provides a brief description and application examples for each function!