Webmaster: Liam Morland © 2008-03-22
date() — Format a local time/date.
string date (string format [, int timestamp])
Returns a string formatted according to the given format string using the given integer timestamp or the current local time if no timestamp is given. In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time().
The characters in the table below are recognized in the format parameter string. Unrecognized characters in the format string will be printed as-is.
Please consult the original documentation for examples and more information. This table is the same as the original except that the rows are grouped by function rather than alphabetically.
| Format Character | Description | Example returned values |
|---|---|---|
| Hour | ||
| H | 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 00 through 23 |
| 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 |
| g | 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 1 through 12 |
| a | Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | am or pm |
| A | Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | AM or PM |
| Minutes and seconds | ||
| i | Minutes with leading zeros | 00 to 59 |
| s | Seconds, with leading zeros | 00 through 59 |
| Timezone | ||
| O | Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours | Example: +0200 |
| 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 43200 |
| T | Timezone setting of this machine | Examples: EST, MDT ... |
| I (capital i) | Whether or not the date is in daylights savings time | 1 if Daylight Savings Time, 0 otherwise. |
| Day of week | ||
| l (lowercase 'L') | A full textual representation of the day of the week | Sunday through Saturday |
| D | A textual representation of a day, three letters | Mon through Sun |
| w | Numeric representation of the day of the week | 0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday) |
| Day of month | ||
| d | Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros | 01 to 31 |
| j | Day of the month without leading zeros | 1 to 31 |
| S | English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters | st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j |
| t | Number of days in the given month | 28 through 31 |
| Month | ||
| F | A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March | January through December |
| M | A short textual representation of a month, three letters | Jan through Dec |
| m | Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros | 01 through 12 |
| n | Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros | 1 through 12 |
| Year | ||
| 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 |
| L | Whether it's a leap year | 1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise. |
| 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) |
| z | The day of the year (starting from 0) | 0 through 365 |
| Preformatted | ||
| r | RFC 2822 formatted date. Equivalent to 'D, j M Y H:i:s O'. | 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() |
| B | Swatch Internet time | 000 through 999 |