- Get time as string php
- date
- Parameters
- Return Values
- Errors/Exceptions
- Changelog
- Examples
- Notes
- See Also
- User Contributed Notes
- Convert DateTime to String in PHP
- Use format() Method in DateTime Class
- Use date_format() Method
- Use Predefined Formats in date_d.php
- Use list() to Convert DateTime to String in PHP
- Related Article — PHP Date
- Related Article — PHP DateTime
- Related Article — PHP String
Get time as string php
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date
Returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the given integer timestamp (Unix timestamp) or the current time if no timestamp is given. In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time() .
Unix timestamps do not handle timezones. Use the DateTimeImmutable class, and its DateTimeInterface::format() formatting method to format date/time information with a timezone attached.
Parameters
Note: date() will always generate 000000 as microseconds since it takes an int parameter, whereas DateTime::format() does support microseconds if DateTime was created with microseconds.
The optional timestamp parameter is an int Unix timestamp that defaults to the current local time if timestamp is omitted or null . In other words, it defaults to the value of time() .
Return Values
Returns a formatted date string.
Errors/Exceptions
Every call to a date/time function will generate a E_WARNING if the time zone is not valid. See also date_default_timezone_set()
Changelog
Version | Description |
---|---|
8.0.0 | timestamp is nullable now. |
Examples
Example #1 date() examples
// set the default timezone to use.
date_default_timezone_set ( ‘UTC’ );
?php
// Prints something like: Monday
echo date ( «l» );
// Prints something like: Monday 8th of August 2005 03:12:46 PM
echo date ( ‘l jS \of F Y h:i:s A’ );
// Prints: July 1, 2000 is on a Saturday
echo «July 1, 2000 is on a » . date ( «l» , mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , 7 , 1 , 2000 ));
/* use the constants in the format parameter */
// prints something like: Wed, 25 Sep 2013 15:28:57 -0700
echo date ( DATE_RFC2822 );
// prints something like: 2000-07-01T00:00:00+00:00
echo date ( DATE_ATOM , mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , 7 , 1 , 2000 ));
?>
You can prevent a recognized character in the format string from being expanded by escaping it with a preceding backslash. If the character with a backslash is already a special sequence, you may need to also escape the backslash.
Example #2 Escaping characters in date()
It is possible to use date() and mktime() together to find dates in the future or the past.
Example #3 date() and mktime() example
$tomorrow = mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , date ( «m» ) , date ( «d» )+ 1 , date ( «Y» ));
$lastmonth = mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , date ( «m» )- 1 , date ( «d» ), date ( «Y» ));
$nextyear = mktime ( 0 , 0 , 0 , date ( «m» ), date ( «d» ), date ( «Y» )+ 1 );
?>?php
Note:
This can be more reliable than simply adding or subtracting the number of seconds in a day or month to a timestamp because of daylight saving time.
Some examples of date() formatting. Note that you should escape any other characters, as any which currently have a special meaning will produce undesirable results, and other characters may be assigned meaning in future PHP versions. When escaping, be sure to use single quotes to prevent characters like \n from becoming newlines.
Example #4 date() Formatting
// Assuming today is March 10th, 2001, 5:16:18 pm, and that we are in the
// Mountain Standard Time (MST) Time Zone
?php
$today = date ( «F j, Y, g:i a» ); // March 10, 2001, 5:16 pm
$today = date ( «m.d.y» ); // 03.10.01
$today = date ( «j, n, Y» ); // 10, 3, 2001
$today = date ( «Ymd» ); // 20010310
$today = date ( ‘h-i-s, j-m-y, it is w Day’ ); // 05-16-18, 10-03-01, 1631 1618 6 Satpm01
$today = date ( ‘\i\t \i\s \t\h\e jS \d\a\y.’ ); // it is the 10th day.
$today = date ( «D M j G:i:s T Y» ); // Sat Mar 10 17:16:18 MST 2001
$today = date ( ‘H:m:s \m \i\s\ \m\o\n\t\h’ ); // 17:03:18 m is month
$today = date ( «H:i:s» ); // 17:16:18
$today = date ( «Y-m-d H:i:s» ); // 2001-03-10 17:16:18 (the MySQL DATETIME format)
?>
To format dates in other languages, IntlDateFormatter::format() can be used instead of date() .
Notes
Note:
To generate a timestamp from a string representation of the date, you may be able to use strtotime() . Additionally, some databases have functions to convert their date formats into timestamps (such as MySQL’s » UNIX_TIMESTAMP function).
Timestamp of the start of the request is available in $_SERVER[‘REQUEST_TIME’] .
See Also
- DateTimeImmutable::__construct() — Returns new DateTimeImmutable object
- DateTimeInterface::format() — Returns date formatted according to given format
- gmdate() — Format a GMT/UTC date/time
- idate() — Format a local time/date part as integer
- getdate() — Get date/time information
- getlastmod() — Gets time of last page modification
- mktime() — Get Unix timestamp for a date
- IntlDateFormatter::format() — Format the date/time value as a string
- time() — Return current Unix timestamp
- Predefined DateTime Constants
User Contributed Notes
- Date/Time Functions
- checkdate
- date_add
- date_create_from_format
- date_create_immutable_from_format
- date_create_immutable
- date_create
- date_date_set
- date_default_timezone_get
- date_default_timezone_set
- date_diff
- date_format
- date_get_last_errors
- date_interval_create_from_date_string
- date_interval_format
- date_isodate_set
- date_modify
- date_offset_get
- date_parse_from_format
- date_parse
- date_sub
- date_sun_info
- date_sunrise
- date_sunset
- date_time_set
- date_timestamp_get
- date_timestamp_set
- date_timezone_get
- date_timezone_set
- date
- getdate
- gettimeofday
- gmdate
- gmmktime
- gmstrftime
- idate
- localtime
- microtime
- mktime
- strftime
- strptime
- strtotime
- time
- timezone_abbreviations_list
- timezone_identifiers_list
- timezone_location_get
- timezone_name_from_abbr
- timezone_name_get
- timezone_offset_get
- timezone_open
- timezone_transitions_get
- timezone_version_get
Convert DateTime to String in PHP
- Use format() Method in DateTime Class
- Use date_format() Method
- Use Predefined Formats in date_d.php
- Use list() to Convert DateTime to String in PHP
Converting DateTime to string in PHP is quite easy, there are useful functions available that are meant for this purpose like format() of DateTime class, date_format() , using the predefined formats or using list() .
Use format() Method in DateTime Class
PHP has a class DateTime for managing date and time. It’s been available since PHP version 5.2.
- It’s able to process more string formats
- It’s easier than other functions.
- The interface encapsulates back-end logic with a clean interface to use.
One of the useful methods of DateTime class is the format() , it returns formatted date string according to the given format.
$theDate = new DateTime('2020-03-08'); echo $stringDate = $theDate->format('Y-m-d H:i:s'); //output: 2020-03-08 00:00:00
The $stringDate is a string with the provided format.
Use date_format() Method
The date_format() method will return a new DateTime object and format it according to the given format.
$date = date_create_from_format('d M, Y', '08 Mar, 2020'); echo $newFormat = date_format($date,"Y/m/d H:i:s"); //output: 2020/03/08 00:00:00
According to the provided format, the date_create_from_format() is being used to parses a time string. This function accepts three parameters: format , time , and the timezone (optional).
In the example above, the date_format() processes the created date to convert it to a string.
Use Predefined Formats in date_d.php
List of predefined formats:
define ('DATE_ATOM', "Y-m-d\TH:i:sP"); define ('DATE_COOKIE', "l, d-M-y H:i:s T"); define ('DATE_ISO8601', "Y-m-d\TH:i:sO"); define ('DATE_RFC822', "D, d M y H:i:s O"); define ('DATE_RFC850', "l, d-M-y H:i:s T"); define ('DATE_RFC1036', "D, d M y H:i:s O"); define ('DATE_RFC1123', "D, d M Y H:i:s O"); define ('DATE_RFC2822', "D, d M Y H:i:s O"); define ('DATE_RFC3339', "Y-m-d\TH:i:sP"); define ('DATE_RSS', "D, d M Y H:i:s O"); define ('DATE_W3C', "Y-m-d\TH:i:sP");
$dateFormat = new DateTime(); // this will return current date echo $stringDate = $date->format(DATE_ATOM); //output: 2020-03-08T12:54:56+01:00
The example above uses one of the predefined formats, so no need to actually provide it.
Use list() to Convert DateTime to String in PHP
The list() function can be used to assign values to a list of variables in one operation but only works with numerical arrays. When the array is assigned to multiple values, the first item in the array will be assigned to the first variable, and so on, till the end of the number of variables. Though the number of variables cannot be more than the length of the numerical array.
$date = explode("/",date('d/m/Y/h/i/s') list($day,$month,$year,$hour,$min,$sec) = $date); echo $month.'/'.$day.'/'.$year.' '.$hour.':'.$min.':'.$sec; //output: 03/08/2020 02:01:06
Using the list() function, you can easily use $day , $month , $year , $hour , $min , and $sec as a variable.
Related Article — PHP Date
Related Article — PHP DateTime
Related Article — PHP String