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PHP date() Function

< PHP Date/Time Reference

Example

Format a local date and time and return the formatted date strings:

<?php
// Prints the day
echo date("l") . "<br>";

// Prints the day, date, month, year, time, AM or PM
echo date("l jS \of F Y h:i:s A");
?>
Run example »

Definition and Usage

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

Syntax

date(format,timestamp);

Parameter Description
format Required. Specifies the format of the outputted date string. The following characters can be used:
  • d - The day of the month (from 01 to 31)
  • D - A textual representation of a day (three letters)
  • j - The day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
  • l (lowercase 'L') - A full textual representation of a day
  • N - The ISO-8601 numeric representation of a day (1 for Monday, 7 for Sunday)
  • S - The English ordinal suffix for the day of the month (2 characters st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j)
  • w - A numeric representation of the day (0 for Sunday, 6 for Saturday)
  • z - The day of the year (from 0 through 365)
  • W - The ISO-8601 week number of year (weeks starting on Monday)
  • F - A full textual representation of a month (January through December)
  • m - A numeric representation of a month (from 01 to 12)
  • M - A short textual representation of a month (three letters)
  • n - A numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • t - The number of days in the given month
  • L - Whether it's a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise)
  • o - The ISO-8601 year number
  • Y - A four digit representation of a year
  • y - A two digit representation of a year
  • a - Lowercase am or pm
  • A - Uppercase AM or PM
  • B - Swatch Internet time (000 to 999)
  • g - 12-hour format of an hour (1 to 12)
  • G - 24-hour format of an hour (0 to 23)
  • h - 12-hour format of an hour (01 to 12)
  • H - 24-hour format of an hour (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 - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores)
  • I (capital i) - Whether the date is in daylights savings time (1 if Daylight Savings Time, 0 otherwise)
  • O - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours (Example: +0100)
  • P - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours:minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)
  • T - Timezone abbreviations (Examples: EST, MDT)
  • Z - Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is negative (-43200 to 50400)
  • c - The ISO-8601 date (e.g. 2013-05-05T16:34:42+00:00)
  • r - The RFC 2822 formatted date (e.g. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:01:05 +0200)
  • U - The seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

and the following predefined constants can also be used (available since PHP 5.1.0):

  • DATE_ATOM - Atom (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
  • DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000)
  • DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (example: 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 (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
timestamp Optional. Specifies an integer Unix timestamp. Default is the current local time (time())

Technical Details

Return Value: Returns a formatted date string on success. FALSE on failure + an E_WARNING
PHP Version: 4+
Changelog: PHP 5.1.0: Added E_STRICT and E_NOTICE time zone errors. Valid range of timestamp is now from Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 GMT to Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 GMT. Before version 5.1.0 timestamp was limited from 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038 on some systems (e.g. Windows).
PHP 5.1.1: Added constants of standard date/time formats that can be used to specify the format parameter
< PHP Date/Time Reference