PHP Date and Time Tutorial With Examples

Discover all about the PHP Date and Time function with examples. Learn how to use them effectively in your applications to get the current date and time in PHP:

In this tutorial, you will learn what the PHP date function is, PHP date, PHP time, and frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to this topic.

Please note that we have used PHP version 7 in all examples.

Let’s begin!

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PHP Date and Time Functions

PHP Date Function

The date() function formats a date and/or a time.

Syntax:

date(format,timestamp);

The following table shows details about the parameters that we can pass to the date() function:

Furthermore, the default timezone defined in the php.ini file is used by the PHP date functions.

Below shows an example of the date() function. You can practice this example by running the following programming code:

<?php
 
echo date("d/m/Y H:i:s");
 
?>

The below text shows the browser output (sample output) of the above programming code:

11/02/2022 13:01:01

The date() function formats a date. The format characters shown in the following table can be used to format a date.

Here is an example of how to format a date using the date() function. You can practice this example by running the following programming code:

<?php
 
echo date("d-m-y")."<br>";
echo date("d-m-Y")."<br>";
echo date("Y/m/d")."<br>";
echo date("Y.m.d");
 
?>

The below text shows the browser output (sample output) of the above programming code:

11-02-22
11-02-2022
2022/02/11
2022.02.11

PHP Time

The date() function formats a time. The format characters shown in the following table can be used to format a time.

*Note:

• GMT stands for Greenwich time.
• AM or am stands for ante meridiem.
• PM or pm stands for post meridiem.

Below shows an example of how to format time using the date() function. You can practice this example by running the following programming code:

<?php
 
echo date("H:i:s")."<br>";
echo date("h:i:s A");
 
?>

The below text shows the browser output (sample output) of the above programming code:

13:01:54
01:01:54 PM

Full PHP Date/Time

The date() function formats a +date and time. The format characters shown in the following table can format the date and time.

*Note: The Unix Epoch is January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT.

Below shows an example of how to format date and time using the date() function. You can practice this example by running the following programming code:

<?php
 
echo date("c")."<br>";
echo date("r")."<br>";
echo date("U");
 
?>

The below text shows the browser output (sample output) of the above programming code:

2022-02-11T07:43:41+05:30
Fri, 11 Feb 2022 07:43:41 +0530
1644545621

Common Functions Associated with Date & Time

PHP has several built-in functions to work with date and time.

Some of the important date/time functions are shown in the list below:

• date_default_timezone_get() – Gets the default timezone.
• date_default_timezone_set() – Sets the default timezone.
• date_parse() – Returns an associative array with detailed information about a given date/time.
• getdate() – Gets date/time information.
• localtime() – Gets the local time.
• microtime() – Returns the current Unix timestamp with microseconds.
• mktime() – Returns Unix timestamp for a date.
• time() – Returns the current Unix timestamp.

mktime Function

The mktime() function gets the Unix timestamp for a date.

Syntax:

mktime(hour, minute, second, month, day, year);

The following table shows details about the parameters that we can pass to the mktime() function.

Below shows a few examples of the mktime() function. You can practice these examples by running the following programming code:

Example 1:

<?php
 
$timestamp = mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 15, 2022);
echo date("M-d-Y", $timestamp);
 
?>

The below text shows the browser output (sample output) of the above programming code:

Jan-15-2022

Example 2:

<?php
 
echo date("d/m/Y h:i:s A", mktime(14, 30, 0, 1, 1, 22))."<br>";
echo date("d/m/Y h:i:s A", mktime(14, 30, 0, 1, 1, 2022))."<br>";
echo date("d/m/Y h:i:s A", mktime(14, 30, 0, 13, 1, 2021))."<br>";
echo date("d/m/Y h:i:s A", mktime(14, 30, 0, 12, 32, 2021));
 
?>

The below text shows the browser output of the above programming code (sample output):

01/01/2022 02:30:00 PM
01/01/2022 02:30:00 PM
01/01/2022 02:30:00 PM
01/01/2022 02:30:00 PM

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The PHP date() function formats the date and time. Further, there are several other built-in functions available in PHP to format the date and time.

The default timezone defined in the php.ini file is used by the date functions.

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