Date Timestamp Formats in PHP
In this article, you will learn how to format date and timestamp in PHP with descriptions and different formatting examples.
PHP date() function
The date() function gives you all the information about the current date on the server and converts date timestamp into a more readable human format.
PHP time() function
The time() function returns the number of seconds between the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT).
PHP mktime() function
The mktime() function creates the timestamp based on a specific date and time and it is in the following format.
mktime(hour, minute, second, month, day, year)
Syntax of date()
date(format, timestamp)
Here, format is the format of the timestamp and the timestamp contains either the current time as a Unix timestamp or the specified time. The format is the required parameter and timestamp is an optional parameter.
It returns a string according to the given format and timestamp. The timestamp is an optional field and by default it takes current time or time().
The following table lists the format parameter characters.
Format | Description | Examples |
---|---|---|
Day | ||
d | Day of month | 01 - 31 |
j | Day of Month | 1 - 31 |
D | Day of week | Mon - Sun |
l | Day of week | Sunday - Saturday |
N | Day of Week | 1 - 7( Mon to Sun) |
w | Day of Week | 0 - 6(Sun to Sat) |
z | Day of year | 0 - 365 |
Week | ||
W | Week number of year | 1 - 53 or 54(leap year) |
Month | ||
F | Month name | January - December |
m | Month of year (number-leading zeroes) | 01 - 12 |
M | Month of year | Jan - Dec |
n | Month of year | 1 - 12 |
t | Number of days in a month | 28 or 30 or 31 |
Year | ||
L | Leap year ('1' for yes, '0' for no) | 1 |
y | Year (two digits) | 18 |
Y | Year (four digits) | 2018 |
Time | ||
A | Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | 'AM' or 'PM' |
g | 12-hour format of an hour | 1 - 12 |
G | 24-hour format of an hour | 0 - 23 |
h | 12-hour format of an hour | 01 - 12 |
H | 24-hour format of an hour | 00 - 23 |
i | Minutes with leading zeros | 00 - 59 |
s | Seconds with leading zeros | 00 - 59 |
Full Date/Time | ||
c | ISO 8601 date | 2018-10-12T18:15:21+00:00 |
r | formatted date | Example: Wed, 05 Oct 2018 20:01:06 +0200 |
U | Time stamp | 948372444 |
Examples
In the below code, we have mentioned three data with default timestamp examples.
<html>
<head>
<title>Date Timestamp Formats in PHP</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
print date("M d Y G.i:s", time());
echo '<br/>';
print date("D Y G.i:s", time());
echo '<br/>Today is ';
print date("z", time());
echo " day of the year";
?>
</body>
</html>
and in the below example, we have set the timestamp values.
<html>
<head>
<title>Date Timestamp Formats in PHP</title>
</head>
<body>
<?php
print date("M d Y G.i:s", strtotime("2018-10-07 22:30:40"));
echo '<br/>';
print date("M d Y G.i:s", mktime(5, 10, 40, 10, 1, 2018));
?>
</body>
</html>
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