date

Description

Returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the given timestamp or the current local time if no timestamp is given.

The following characters are recognized in the format string:

• a - "am" or "pm"

• A - "AM" or "PM"

• B - Swatch Internet time

• d - day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros; i.e. "01" to "31"

• D - day of the week, textual, 3 letters; i.e. "Fri"

• F - month, textual, long; i.e. "January"

• g - hour, 12-hour format without leading zeros; i.e. "1" to "12"

• G - hour, 24-hour format without leading zeros; i.e. "0" to "23"

• h - hour, 12-hour format; i.e. "01" to "12"

• H - hour, 24-hour format; i.e. "00" to "23"

• i - minutes; i.e. "00" to "59"

• I (capital i) - "1" if Daylight Savings Time, "0" otherwise.

• j - day of the month without leading zeros; i.e. "1" to "31"

• l (lowercase 'L') - day of the week, textual, long; i.e. "Friday"

• L - boolean for whether it is a leap year; i.e. "0" or "1"

• m - month; i.e. "01" to "12"

• M - month, textual, 3 letters; i.e. "Jan"

• n - month without leading zeros; i.e. "1" to "12"

• s - seconds; i.e. "00" to "59"

• S - English ordinal suffix, textual, 2 characters; i.e. "th", "nd"

• t - number of days in the given month; i.e. "28" to "31"

• T - Timezone setting of this machine; i.e. "MDT"

• U - seconds since the epoch

• w - day of the week, numeric, i.e. "0" (Sunday) to "6" (Saturday)

• Y - year, 4 digits; i.e. "1999"

• y - year, 2 digits; i.e. "99"

• z - day of the year; i.e. "0" to "365"

• Z - timezone offset in seconds (i.e. "-43200" to "43200")

print (date ("l dS of F Y h:i:s A"));
print ("July 1, 2000 is on a " . date ("l", mktime(0,0,0,7,1,2000)));
      

It is possible to use date() and mktime() together to find dates in the future or the past.

Example 2. 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);

To format dates in other languages, you should use the setlocale() and strftime() functions.

See also gmdate() and mktime().