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PHP: date() function

Description

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

Previous: date_sunset
Next: getdate



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