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# PHP Function date()

## Syntax

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

## Definition and Usage

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().

## Paramters

Parameter | Description
--- | ---
format | Required. Specifies how to return the result:

- 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 through 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 through 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)
- e - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, 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)
- T - Timezone setting of the PHP machine (Examples: EST, MDT)
- Z - Timezone offset in seconds. The offset west of UTC is negative, and the offset east of UTC is positive (-43200 to 43200)
- c - The ISO-8601 date (e.g. 2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00)
- r - The RFC 2822 formatted date (e.g. Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200)
- U - The seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

timestamp | Optional. This is an integer Unix timestamp that defaults to the current local time if a timestamp is not given. In other words, it defaults to the value of time().

## Return Value

Returns a formatted date string. If a non-numeric value is used for timestamp, FALSE is returned and an E_WARNING level error is emitted.

## Example

Following is the usage of this function:

    <?php
    // set the default timezone to use. Available since PHP 5.1
    date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

    // Prints something like: Monday
    echo date("l");
    echo "\n";

    // Prints something like: Monday 15th of August 2005 03:12:46 PM
    echo date('l dS \of F Y h:i:s A');
    echo "\n";

    // Prints: July 1, 2000 is on a Saturday
    echo "July 1, 2000 is on a " . date("l",
                                     mktime(0, 0, 0, 7, 1, 2000));
    echo "\n";

    /* use the constants in the format parameter */
    // prints something like: Mon, 15 Aug 2005 15:12:46 UTC
    echo date(DATE_RFC822);
    echo "\n";

    // prints something like: 2000-07-01T00:00:00+00:00
    echo date(DATE_ATOM, mktime(0, 0, 0, 7, 1, 2000));
    ?>

This will produce following result:

    Sunday
    Sunday 19th of August 2007 08:17:47 AM
    July 1, 2000 is on a Saturday
    Sun, 19 Aug 07 08:17:47 +0000
    2000-07-01T00:00:00+00:00

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