PHP Date Function
the php date function is great. i use it in virtually every website that i write. the copyright text at the bottom of this page uses the date function to determine which year to stamp on it.
The function is called quite simply by using:-
<?php
$date = date("Y") ;
echo $date ;
?>
So as you can see that will return you :- 2009
If you scroll down the page it will show the various letters to put into the date() to give you various different displays.
example 2
<?php
$date = date("r");
echo $date ;
$date2 = date("D, d M Y H:i:s O");
echo $date2
?>
So that will inturn give you : – Fri, 11 Dec 2009 21:58:57 +0000
‘r’ is the full description code for the same as referenced in $date2.
example 3
<?php
$fileupdated = date(‘F d Y H:i:s’,filemtime(‘scw_tuts_php3.php’));
echo $fileupdated ;
?>
This little line will give you the date that a file was last uploaded to your server. This function I use alot with a non-live pricelist website that can only be updated manually.
This example will give you the following : April 13 2009 22:56:06;
There are so many useful reasons to use the date function. for the best variation that you will need, browse down below this to get a list of display types.The best thing to do is to try out a few combinations in a small php file.
Full List Of Date Combinations
Time:
- a: am or pm depending on the time
- A: AM or PM depending on the time
- g: Hour without leading zeroes. Values are 1 through 12.
- G: Hour in 24-hour format without leading zeroes. Values are 0 through 23.
- h: Hour with leading zeroes. Values 01 through 12.
- H: Hour in 24-hour format with leading zeroes. Values 00 through 23.
- i: Minute with leading zeroes. Values 00 through 59.
- s: Seconds with leading zeroes. Values 00 through 59.
Day:
- d: Day of the month with leading zeroes. Values are 01 through 31.
- j: Day of the month without leading zeroes. Values 1 through 31
- D: Day of the week abbreviations. Sun through Sat
- l: Day of the week. Values Sunday through Saturday
- w: Day of the week without leading zeroes. Values 0 through 6.
- z: Day of the year without leading zeroes. Values 0 through 365.
Month:
- m: Month number with leading zeroes. Values 01 through 12
- n: Month number without leading zeroes. Values 1 through 12
- M: Abbreviation for the month. Values Jan through Dec
- F: Normal month representation. Values January through December.
- t: The number of days in the month. Values 28 through 31.
Year:
- L: 1 if it’s a leap year and 0 if it isn’t.
- Y: A four digit year format
- y: A two digit year format. Values 00 through 99.
Other Formatting:
- U: The number of seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1, 1970)
- O: This represents the Timezone offset, which is the difference from Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT). 100 = 1 hour, -600 = -6 hours
Simple Aint It??
Nice straight forward tut for newbie like me to follow. Thanks Very Much For this.