PHP date() Function Showing Date from 1970

I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve used the PHP date() function and wondered why it’s returning a date from 1970 so I wanted to share with you the most common reason/mistake I’ve found for causing this in the event that you are facing the same problem.

The Solution

The date() function can accept two parameters; the format of the required date and an optional UNIX timestamp. If passing the second timestamp parameter remember that it must be converted to a timestamp. This can be done using the PHP strtotime() function. Let me show you an example below of my usual error with the date being pulled from a database and a corrected working version.

echo date("d F Y", $row['my_date']);
// Incorrect: Outputs '01 January 1970'

echo date("d F Y", strtotime($row['my_date']));
// Correct: Outputs the expected date. eg '30 December 2010'