PHP: date() function

Last update on October 08 2024 12:26:22 (UTC/GMT +8 hours)

PHP: Format a Unix timestamp

The date() function displays a formatted local time/date.

Version:

(PHP 4 and above)

Syntax:

date(format, timestamp)

Parameters:

Name	Description	Required / Optional	OptionalType
format	Day : d - The numeric day of the month with leading zeros (01 to 31) D - Short day abbreviation (three letters). Mon through Sun. j - Day of the month without leading zeros ( 1 to 31) `l` (lowercase 'L') - Full day name (`Sunday` through `Saturday`) N - ISO-8601 numeric representation of a day of a week (1 (for Monday) through 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 - The numeric day of the week. (0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday) z - The numeric day of the year (0 to 365) Week: W - ISO-8601 numeric representation of week number of year. Week starting from Monday Month : F - Full month name. (January through December) m - Numeric representation of a month with leading zeros (01 to 12) M - Short month abbreviation (three letters). `Jan` through `Dec` n - Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros (1 through 12) t -Number of days of a specified month (28 through 31) Year : L - Whether it's a leap year (set 1 if leap year otherwise 0) o - ISO-8601 year number Y - Numeric year value in 4 digits (1999) y - Numeric year value in two digits (1999 as 99) Time : a - Lowercase am or pm. A - Uppercase AM or PM. B - Swatch Internet time (000 through 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(numeric value) Example : 574925 Timezone : e - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, Atlantic/Azores) I - Whether the date is in daylights savings time (set 1 for Daylight Savings Time, 0 otherwise) O - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours (Example: +0300). p - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with a colon between hours and minutes (Example: +03:00). T - Timezone abbreviation. (Examples: EST, MDT) 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 through 50400). Full Date/Time : c - ISO 8601 date (2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00) r - RFC 2822 formatted date. (`Thu, 22 Jan 2005 16:01:07 +0200`) U - Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)	Optional	String
timestamp	An integer indicates the unixtimestamp. If a timestamp is not supplied, it gives the current local time.	Optional	integer

Return value:

The absolute value of the number.

Value Type: Date

Example:

<?php
//Set the default timezone to UTC.
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');
echo "<strong>Display current date dd/mm/yyyy format </strong>"."<br />";
echo date("d/m/Y")."<br />";
echo "<strong>Display current date mm/dd/yyyy format</strong> "."<br />";
echo date("m/d/Y")."<br />";
echo "<strong>Display current date mm-dd-yyyy format </strong>"."<br />";
echo date("m-d-Y")."<br />";
echo "<strong>Display like Monday 6th of March 1996 </strong>"."<br />";
echo date("l jS \of F Y")."<br />";
echo "<strong>Display the above format with time </strong>"."<br />";
echo date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A')."<br />";
echo "<strong>Display something like: 2010-11-01T00:00:00+00:00 </strong>"."<br />";
echo date(DATE_ATOM, mktime(0, 0, 0, 7, 1, 2000));
?>

View the example in the browser

See also

PHP Function Reference

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