Date Function And Its Operations In Php

PHP Date() :

The PHP date() function is used to format a time or a date.

The PHP date() function formats a timestamp to a more readable date and time.

//Syntax :
date(format,timestamp)

PHP Date - Timestamp :

A timestamp is the number of seconds since January 1, 1970 at 00:00:00 GMT. This is also known as the Unix Timestamp.

The first parameter in the date() function specifies how to format the date/time. It uses letters to represent date and time formats. Here are some of the letters that can be used:

• d - The day of the month (01-31)

• m - The current month, as a number (01-12)

• Y - The current year in four digits

Other characters, like"/", ".", or "-" can also be inserted between the letters to add additional formatting:

<?php
echo date("Y/m/d");
echo "<br />";
echo date("Y.m.d");
echo "<br />";
echo date("Y-m-d");
?>

//  O/P : 2006/07/11
    2006.07.11
    2006-07-11

PHP Date - Adding a Timestamp :

The second parameter in the date() function specifies a timestamp. This parameter is optional. If you do not supply a timestamp, the current time will be used.

In our next example we will use the mktime() function to create a timestamp for tomorrow.

The mktime() function returns the Unix timestamp for a specified date.

//Syntax :
mktime(hour,minute,second,month,day,year,is_dst)

To go one day in the future we simply add one to the day argument of mktime():

<?php
$tomorrow = mktime(0,0,0,date("m"),date("d")+1,date("Y"));
echo "Tomorrow is ".date("Y/m/d/", $tomorrow);
?>

//  O/P : Tomorrow is 2006/07/12