PHP Date Formats

PHP Date function returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the given integer timestamp or the current time if no timestamp is given. In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time().

Function Signature

string date ( string $format [, int $timestamp ] )

Pre define date Constant

const string DateTime::ATOM = Y-m-d\TH:i:sP ;
const string DateTime::COOKIE = l, d-M-y H:i:s T ;
const string DateTime::ISO8601 = Y-m-d\TH:i:sO ;
const string DateTime::RFC822 = D, d M y H:i:s O ;
const string DateTime::RFC850 = l, d-M-y H:i:s T ;
const string DateTime::RFC1036 = D, d M y H:i:s O ;
const string DateTime::RFC1123 = D, d M Y H:i:s O ;
const string DateTime::RFC2822 = D, d M Y H:i:s O ;
const string DateTime::RFC3339 = Y-m-d\TH:i:sP ;
const string DateTime::RSS = D, d M Y H:i:s O ;
const string DateTime::W3C = Y-m-d\TH:i:sP ;

The following characters are recognized in the format parameter string

format character	Description	Example returned values
Day	---	---
d	Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros	01 to 31
D	A textual representation of a day, three letters	Mon through Sun
j	Day of the month without leading zeros	1 to 31
l (lowercase 'L')	A full textual representation of the day of the week	Sunday through Saturday
N	ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week (added in PHP 5.1.0)	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	Numeric representation of the day of the week	0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday)
z	The day of the year (starting from 0)	0 through 365
Week	---	---
W	ISO-8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday (added in PHP 4.1.0)	Example: 42 (the 42nd week in the year)
Month	---	---
F	A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March	January through December
m	Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros	01 through 12
M	A short textual representation of a month, three letters	Jan through Dec
n	Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros	1 through 12
t	Number of days in the given month	28 through 31
Year	---	---
L	Whether it's a leap year	1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise.
o	ISO-8601 year number. This has the same value as Y, except that if the ISO week number (W) belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. (added in PHP 5.1.0)	Examples: 1999 or 2003
Y	A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits	Examples: 1999 or 2003
y	A two digit representation of a year	Examples: 99 or 03
Time	---	---
a	Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem	am or pm
A	Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem	AM or PM
B	Swatch Internet time	000 through 999
g	12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros	1 through 12
G	24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros	0 through 23
h	12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros	01 through 12
H	24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros	00 through 23
i	Minutes with leading zeros	00 to 59
s	Seconds, with leading zeros	00 through 59
u	Microseconds (added in PHP 5.2.2)	Example: 654321
Timezone	---	---
e	Timezone identifier (added in PHP 5.1.0)	Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores
I (capital i)	Whether or not the date is in daylight saving time	1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0 otherwise.
O	Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours	Example: +0200
P	Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with colon between hours and minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)	Example: +02:00
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 (added in PHP 5)	2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00
r	» RFC 2822 formatted date	Example: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200
U	Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)	See also time()

Examples

<?php
echo("Result with date():
");
echo(date("l") . "
");
echo(date("l dS \of F Y h:i:s A") . "
");
echo("Oct 3,1975 was on a ".date("l", mktime(0,0,0,10,3,1975))."
");
echo(date(DATE_RFC822) . "
");
echo(date(DATE_ATOM,mktime(0,0,0,10,3,1975)) . "

");

echo("Result with gmdate():
");
echo(gmdate("l") . "
");
echo(gmdate("l dS \of F Y h:i:s A") . "
");
echo("Oct 3,1975 was on a ".gmdate("l", mktime(0,0,0,10,3,1975))."
");
echo(gmdate(DATE_RFC822) . "
");
echo(gmdate(DATE_ATOM,mktime(0,0,0,10,3,1975)) . "
");
?>

Output

Result with date():
Tuesday
Tuesday 24th of January 2006 02:41:22 PM
Oct 3,1975 was on a Friday
Tue, 24 Jan 2006 14:41:22 CET
1975-10-03T00:00:00+0100

Result with gmdate():
Tuesday
Tuesday 24th of January 2006 01:41:22 PM
Oct 3,1975 was on a Thursday
Tue, 24 Jan 2006 13:41:22 GMT
1975-10-02T23:00:00+0000