# PHP date() Function

PHP Date/Time Reference

## Example

Format a local date and time and return the formatted date strings:

<?php
// Prints the day
echo date("l") . "<br>";
// Prints the day, date, month, year, time, AM or PM
echo date("l jS \of F Y h:i:s A");
?>
Run example »

## Definition and Usage

The date() function formats a local date and time, and returns the formatted date string.

## Syntax

date(format,timestamp);

Parameter | Description
--- | ---

format

Required. Specifies the format of the outputted date string. The following characters can be used:

- d - The day of the month (from 01 to 31)
- D - A textual representation of a day (three letters)
- j - The day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
- l (lowercase 'L') - A full textual representation of a day
- N - The ISO-8601 numeric representation of a day (1 for Monday, 7 for Sunday)
- S - The English ordinal suffix for the day of the month (2 characters st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j)
- w - A numeric representation of the day (0 for Sunday, 6 for Saturday)
- z - The day of the year (from 0 through 365)
- W - The ISO-8601 week number of year (weeks starting on Monday)
- F - A full textual representation of a month (January through December)
- m - A numeric representation of a month (from 01 to 12)
- M - A short textual representation of a month (three letters)
- n - A numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros (1 to 12)
- t - The number of days in the given month
- L - Whether it's a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise)
- o - The ISO-8601 year number
- Y - A four digit representation of a year
- y - A two digit representation of a year
- a - Lowercase am or pm
- A - Uppercase AM or PM
- B - Swatch Internet time (000 to 999)
- g - 12-hour format of an hour (1 to 12)
- G - 24-hour format of an hour (0 to 23)
- h - 12-hour format of an hour (01 to 12)
- H - 24-hour format of an hour (00 to 23)
- i - Minutes with leading zeros (00 to 59)
- s - Seconds, with leading zeros (00 to 59)
- u - Microseconds (added in PHP 5.2.2)
- e - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores)
- I (capital i) - Whether the date is in daylights savings time (1 if Daylight Savings Time, 0 otherwise)
- O - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours (Example: +0100)
- P - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours:minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)
- T - Timezone abbreviations (Examples: EST, MDT)
- Z - Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is negative (-43200 to 50400)
- c - The ISO-8601 date (e.g. 2013-05-05T16:34:42+00:00)
- r - The RFC 2822 formatted date (e.g. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:01:05 +0200)
- U - The seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

and the following predefined constants can also be used (available since PHP 5.1.0):

- DATE_ATOM - Atom (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
- DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
- DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000)
- DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
- DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
- DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
- DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
- DATE_RFC2822 - RFC 2822 (Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
- DATE_RFC3339 - Same as DATE_ATOM (since PHP 5.1.3)
- DATE_RSS - RSS (Fri, 12 Aug 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
- DATE_W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)

timestamp | Optional. Specifies an integer Unix timestamp. Default is the current local time (time())

## Technical Details

Return Value: | Returns a formatted date string on success. FALSE on failure + an E_WARNING
PHP Version: | 4+

Changelog:

PHP 5.1.0: Added E_STRICT and E_NOTICE time zone errors. Valid range of timestamp is now from Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 GMT to Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 GMT. Before version 5.1.0 timestamp was limited from 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038 on some systems (e.g. Windows).
PHP 5.1.1: Added constants of standard date/time formats that can be used to specify the format parameter

PHP Date/Time Reference

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