PHP

Working with Dates and Time

Syntax#

  • string date ( string $format [, int $timestamp = time() ] )
  • int strtotime ( string $time [, int $now ] )

Parse English date descriptions into a Date format

Using the strtotime() function combined with date() you can parse different English text descriptions to dates:

// Gets the current date
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("now")), "\n"; // prints the current date
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("10 September 2000")), "\n"; // prints September 10, 2000 in the m/d/Y format
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("-1 day")), "\n"; // prints yesterday's date
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("+1 week")), "\n"; // prints the result of the current date + a week
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("+1 week 2 days 4 hours 2 seconds")), "\n"; // same as the last example but with extra days, hours, and seconds added to it
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("next Thursday")), "\n"; // prints next Thursday's date
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("last Monday")), "\n"; // prints last Monday's date
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("First day of next month")), "\n"; // prints date of first day of next month
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("Last day of next month")), "\n"; // prints date of last day of next month
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("First day of last month")), "\n"; // prints date of first day of last month
echo date("m/d/Y", strtotime("Last day of last month")), "\n"; // prints date of last day of last month

Convert a date into another format

The Basics

The simplist way to convert one date format into another is to use strtotime() with date(). strtotime() will convert the date into a Unix Timestamp. That Unix Timestamp can then be passed to date() to convert it to the new format.

$timestamp = strtotime('2008-07-01T22:35:17.02');
$new_date_format = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $timestamp);

Or as a one-liner:

$new_date_format = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', strtotime('2008-07-01T22:35:17.02'));

Keep in mind that strtotime() requires the date to be in a valid format. Failure to provide a valid format will result in strtotime() returning false which will cause your date to be 1969-12-31.

Using DateTime()

As of PHP 5.2, PHP offered the DateTime() class which offers us more powerful tools for working with dates (and time). We can rewrite the above code using DateTime() as so:

$date = new DateTime('2008-07-01T22:35:17.02');
$new_date_format = $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

Working with Unix timestamps

date() takes a Unix timestamp as its second parameter and returns a formatted date for you:

$new_date_format = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', '1234567890');

DateTime() works with Unix timestamps by adding an @ before the timestamp:

$date = new DateTime('@1234567890');
$new_date_format = $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

If the timestamp you have is in milliseconds (it may end in 000 and/or the timestamp is thirteen characters long) you will need to convert it to seconds before you can can convert it to another format. There’s two ways to do this:

  • Trim the last three digits off using substr()

Trimming the last three digits can be acheived several ways, but using substr() is the easiest:

$timestamp = substr('1234567899000', -3);
  • Divide the substr by 1000

You can also convert the timestamp into seconds by dividing by 1000. Because the timestamp is too large for 32 bit systems to do math on you will need to use the BCMath library to do the math as strings:

$timestamp = bcdiv('1234567899000', '1000');

To get a Unix Timestamp you can use strtotime() which returns a Unix Timestamp:

$timestamp = strtotime('1973-04-18');

With DateTime() you can use DateTime::getTimestamp()

$date = new DateTime('2008-07-01T22:35:17.02');
$timestamp = $date->getTimestamp();

If you’re running PHP 5.2 you can use the U formatting option instead:

$date = new DateTime('2008-07-01T22:35:17.02');
$timestamp = $date->format('U');

Working with non-standard and ambiguous date formats

Unfortunately not all dates that a developer has to work with are in a standard format. Fortunately PHP 5.3 provided us with a solution for that. DateTime::createFromFormat() allows us to tell PHP what format a date string is in so it can be successfully parsed into a DateTime object for further manipulation.

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('F-d-Y h:i A', 'April-18-1973 9:48 AM');
$new_date_format = $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

In PHP 5.4 we gained the ability to do class member access on instantiation has been added which allows us to turn our DateTime() code into a one-liner:

$new_date_format = (new DateTime('2008-07-01T22:35:17.02'))->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

Unfortunately this does not work with DateTime::createFromFormat() yet.

Using Predefined Constants for Date Format

We can use Predefined Constants for Date format in date() instead of the conventional date format strings since PHP 5.1.0.

Predefined Date Format Constants Available

DATE_ATOM - Atom (2016-07-22T14:50:01+00:00)

DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (Friday, 22-Jul-16 14:50:01 UTC)

DATE_RSS - RSS (Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:50:01 +0000)

DATE_W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (2016-07-22T14:50:01+00:00)

DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (2016-07-22T14:50:01+0000)

DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (Fri, 22 Jul 16 14:50:01 +0000)

DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (Friday, 22-Jul-16 14:50:01 UTC)

DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (Fri, 22 Jul 16 14:50:01 +0000)

DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:50:01 +0000)

DATE_RFC2822 - RFC 2822 (Fri, 22 Jul 2016 14:50:01 +0000)

DATE_RFC3339 - Same as DATE_ATOM (2016-07-22T14:50:01+00:00)

Usage Examples

echo date(DATE_RFC822);

This will output: Fri, 22 Jul 16 14:50:01 +0000

echo date(DATE_ATOM,mktime(0,0,0,8,15,1947));

This will output: 1947-08-15T00:00:00+05:30

Getting the difference between two dates / times

The most feasible way is to use, the DateTime class.

An example:

<?php
// Create a date time object, which has the value of ~ two years ago
$twoYearsAgo = new DateTime("2014-01-18 20:05:56");
// Create a date time object, which has the value of ~ now
$now = new DateTime("2016-07-21 02:55:07");

// Calculate the diff
$diff = $now->diff($twoYearsAgo);

// $diff->y contains the difference in years between the two dates
$yearsDiff = $diff->y;
// $diff->m contains the difference in minutes between the two dates
$monthsDiff = $diff->m;
// $diff->d contains the difference in days between the two dates
$daysDiff = $diff->d;
// $diff->h contains the difference in hours between the two dates
$hoursDiff = $diff->h;
// $diff->i contains the difference in minutes between the two dates
$minsDiff = $diff->i;
// $diff->s contains the difference in seconds between the two dates
$secondsDiff = $diff->s;

// Total Days Diff, that is the number of days between the two dates
$totalDaysDiff = $diff->days;

// Dump the diff altogether just to get some details ;)
var_dump($diff);

Also, comparing two dates is much easier, just use the https://stackoverflow.com/documentation/php/1687/operators/6231/comparison-operators , like:

<?php
// Create a date time object, which has the value of ~ two years ago
$twoYearsAgo = new DateTime("2014-01-18 20:05:56");
// Create a date time object, which has the value of ~ now
$now = new DateTime("2016-07-21 02:55:07");
var_dump($now > $twoYearsAgo); // prints bool(true)
var_dump($twoYearsAgo > $now); // prints bool(false)
var_dump($twoYearsAgo <= $twoYearsAgo); // prints bool(true)
var_dump($now == $now); // prints bool(true)
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