PHP 5 Date and Time Functions

The following section contains a list of useful PHP date and time functions.

PHP Date and Time Functions

The following date and time functions are the part of the PHP core so you can use these functions within your script without any further installation.

Function	Description
checkdate()	Validates a Gregorian date
date_add()	Adds an amount of days, months, years, hours, minutes and seconds to a date
date_create_from_format()	Returns a new DateTime object formatted according to the specified format
date_create()	Returns new DateTime object
date_date_set()	Sets a new date
date_default_timezone_get()	Returns the default timezone used by all date/time functions in a script
date_default_timezone_set()	Sets the default timezone used by all date/time functions in a script
date_diff()	Returns the difference between two dates
date_format()	Returns a date formatted according to a specified format
date_get_last_errors()	Returns the warnings and errors found while parsing a date/time string
date_interval_create_from_date_string()	Sets up a DateInterval from the relative parts of the string
date_interval_format()	Formats the interval
date_isodate_set()	Set a date according to the ISO 8601 standard
date_modify()	Modifies the timestamp
date_offset_get()	Returns the timezone offset
date_parse_from_format()	Returns an associative array with detailed info about given date formatted according to the specified format
date_parse()	Returns associative array with detailed info about a specified date
date_sub()	Subtracts an amount of days, months, years, hours, minutes and seconds from a date
date_sun_info()	Returns an array with information about sunset/sunrise and twilight begin/end for a specified day and location
date_sunrise()	Returns time of sunrise for a given day and location
date_sunset()	Returns time of sunset for a given day and location
date_time_set()	Sets the time
date_timestamp_get()	Returns the Unix timestamp representing the date
date_timestamp_set()	Sets the date and time based on an Unix timestamp
date_timezone_get()	Return time zone relative to given DateTime
date_timezone_set()	Sets the time zone for the DateTime object
date()	Formats a local date and time
getdate()	Returns date/time information of the timestamp or the current local date/time
gettimeofday()	Returns the current time
gmdate()	Formats a GMT/UTC date and time
gmmktime()	Get Unix timestamp for a GMT date
gmstrftime()	Formats a GMT/UTC date and time according to locale settings
idate()	Formats a local time/date as integer
localtime()	Returns the local time
microtime()	Return the current Unix timestamp with microseconds
mktime()	Returns the Unix timestamp for a date
strftime()	Formats a local time/date according to locale settings
strptime()	Parses a time/date generated with strftime()
strtotime()	Parses an English textual datetime into a Unix timestamp
time()	Returns the current time as a Unix timestamp
timezone_abbreviations_list()	Returns associative array containing dst, offset and the timezone name
timezone_identifiers_list()	Returns an indexed array containing all defined timezone identifiers
timezone_location_get()	Returns the location information for a specified timezone
timezone_name_from_abbr()	Returns the timezone name from abbreviation
timezone_name_get()	Returns the name of the timezone
timezone_offset_get()	Returns the timezone offset from GMT
timezone_open()	Creates new DateTimeZone object
timezone_transitions_get()	Returns all transitions for the timezone
timezone_version_get()	Returns the current version of the timezonedb