Description

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 otherwords, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time().

Unrecognized characters in the format string will be printed as-is. The Z format will always return 0 when using gmdate().

Example 1. date() examples <?php // Prints something like: Wednesday echo date("l"); // Prints something like: Wednesday 15th of January 2003 05:51:38 AM echo date("l dS of F Y h:i:s A"); // Prints: July 1, 2000 is on a Saturday echo "July 1, 2000 is on a " . date("l", mktime(0, 0, 0, 7, 1, 2000)); ?>

You can prevent a recognized character in the format string from being expanded by escaping it with a preceding backslash. If the character with a backslash is already a special sequence, you may need to also escape the backslash.

Example 2. Escaping characters in date() <?php // prints something like: Wednesday the 15th echo date("l \\t\h\e jS"); ?>

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

Example 3. date() and mktime() example <?php $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); ?>

Some examples of date() formatting. Note that you should escape any other characters, as any which currently have a special meaning will produce undesirable results, and other characters may be assigned meaning in future PHP versions. When escaping, be sure to use single quotes to prevent characters like \n from becoming newlines.

Example 4. date() Formatting <?php // Assuming today is: March 10th, 2001, 5:16:18 pm $today = date("F j, Y, g:i a");                 // March 10, 2001, 5:16 pm $today = date("m.d.y");                         // 03.10.01 $today = date("j, n, Y");                       // 10, 3, 2001 $today = date("Ymd");                           // 20010310 $today = date('h-i-s, j-m-y, it is w Day z ');  // 05-16-17, 10-03-01, 1631 1618 6 Fripm01 $today = date('\i\t \i\s \t\h\e jS \d\a\y.');   // It is the 10th day. $today = date("D M j G:i:s T Y");               // Sat Mar 10 15:16:08 MST 2001 $today = date('H:m:s \m \i\s\ \m\o\n\t\h');     // 17:03:17 m is month $today = date("H:i:s");                         // 17:16:17 ?>

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

See also getlastmod(), gmdate(), mktime(), strftime() and time().