PHP Date Exercises : Last 6 months from the current month

Last update on June 03 2025 12:56:00 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

22. Last 6 Months from Current Month

Write a PHP script to get the last 6 months from the current month.

Sample Solution:

PHP Code:

<?php
// Initialize an empty array to store the months
$months = [];

// Loop through 6 iterations to generate the last 6 months
for ($i = 1; $i <= 6; $i++) 
{
    // Generate the date string for the first day of the month $i months ago
    $date = date('Y-m-01', strtotime(date('Y-m-01') . " -$i months"));
    
    // Append the date string to the $months array
    $months[] = $date;
}

// Output the array containing the last 6 months
var_dump($months);
?>

Output:

array(6) {                                                  
  [0]=>                                                     
  string(8) "2017-01%"                                      
  [1]=>                                                     
  string(8) "2016-12%"                                      
  [2]=>                                                     
  string(8) "2016-11%"                                      
  [3]=>                                                     
  string(8) "2016-10%"                                      
  [4]=>                                                     
  string(8) "2016-09%"                                      
  [5]=>                                                     
  string(8) "2016-08%"                                      
}

Explanation:

In the exercise above,

for ($i = 1; $i <= 6; $i++): Initiates a for loop to iterate through the last 6 months.
$months[] = ...: Appends each generated date string to the '$months' array.
date('Y-m-01', strtotime(date('Y-m-01') . " -$i months")): Generates the date string for the first day of the month $i months ago.
var_dump($months);: Outputs the array containing the last 6 months for debugging purposes.

Flowchart :

Flowchart: Last 6 months from the current month

For more Practice: Solve these Related Problems:

Write a PHP script to generate an array of the last 6 months’ names starting from the current month using DateTime and modify.
Write a PHP function that returns the previous 6 months in chronological order from the current date.
Write a PHP program to display the last 6 months along with their numerical representations (e.g., 03 for March).
Write a PHP script to calculate and output the last 6 months in a single line, separated by commas.

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PHP Code Editor:

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