PHP date() Function

PHP Date / Time Functions

Example

Format the local date and time and return the formatted date string:

<?php
// Output day
echo date("l") . "<br>";
// Output day, date, month, year, time AM or PM
echo date("l jS \of F Y h:i:s A");
?>

Run Instance

Definition and Usage

The date() function formats the local date and time and returns the formatted date string.

Syntax

date(format,timestamp);
Parameter Description
format

Required. Specifies the format of the output date string. The following characters can be used:

  • d - Day of the month (from 01 to 31)
  • D - Text representation of the day of the week (represented by three letters)
  • j - Day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
  • l (lowercase form of 'L') - Full text representation of the day of the week
  • N - ISO-8601 numeric format representation of the day of the week (1 for Monday, 7 for Sunday)
  • S - Suffix of the English ordinal number of the day in a month (2 characters: st, nd, rd, or th. Used with j)
  • w - Numeric representation of the day of the week (0 for Sunday, 6 for Saturday)
  • z - Day of the year (from 0 to 365)
  • W - Week number in the year represented in ISO-8601 numeric format (starting from Monday)
  • F - Full text representation of the month (January to December)
  • m - Numeric representation of the month (from 01 to 12)
  • M - Short text representation of the month (represented by three letters)
  • n - Numeric representation of the month without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • t - Number of days in the given month
  • L - Whether it is a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, otherwise 0)
  • o - Year number under the ISO-8601 standard
  • Y - Four-digit representation of the year
  • y - Two-digit representation of the year
  • a - Represents lowercase form: am or pm
  • A - Uppercase representation: AM or PM
  • B - Swatch Internet Time (000 to 999)
  • g - 12-hour clock, without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • G - 24-hour clock, without leading zeros (0 to 23)
  • h - 12-hour clock, with leading zeros (01 to 12)
  • H - 24-hour clock, 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)
  • e - Timezone identifier (for example: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores)
  • I (uppercase form of i) - Whether the date is in daylight saving time (1 if it is, 0 otherwise)
  • O - The difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in hours (for example: +0100)
  • P - The difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in hours:minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)
  • T - Abbreviation of the timezone (for example: EST, MDT)
  • Z - Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for the Western timezone of UTC is negative (-43200 to 50400)
  • c - Date in ISO-8601 standard (for example 2013-05-05T16:34:42+00:00)
  • r - Date in RFC 2822 format (for example Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:01:05 +0200)
  • U - The number of seconds elapsed since the Unix epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

At the same time, the following predefined constants can also be used (available since PHP 5.1.0):

  • DATE_ATOM - Atom (for example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
  • DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (for example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (for example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000)
  • DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (for example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (for example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (for example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (e.g., Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC2822 - RFC 2822 (Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC3339 - Same as DATE_ATOM (since PHP 5.1.3)
  • DATE_RSS - RSS (Fri, 12 Aug 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (e.g., 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
timestamp Optional. Specifies an integer Unix timestamp. The default is the current local time (time()).

Technical Details

Return Value: Returns a formatted date string if successful, or reports an E_WARNING error and returns FALSE if it fails.
PHP Version: 4+
Update Log:

PHP 5.1.0: Added E_STRICT and E_NOTICE timezone errors. The valid timestamp range is from 20:45:54 GMT Friday, December 13, 1901, to 03:14:07 GMT Tuesday, January 19, 2038. In versions prior to 5.1.0, timestamps are limited to 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038 on some systems (such as Windows).

PHP 5.1.1: Added standard date/time format constants for specification format Parameters.

PHP Date / Time Functions