How to get the current UNIX timestamp using PHP

UNIX TIMESTAMP: Is the time measured in seconds since the start of the Unix epoch “1 January 1970”

Use the PHP time function as per example below

echo time(); //Will print out the current timestamp
 
//OUTPUT: 1285365600

PHP: Date and time example

<?php
$time = time();
print date("m/d/y G.i:s", $time);
print "<br>";
print "Today is ";
print date("j of F Y, \a\\t g.i a", $time);
?>

PHP: Some date and time examples

<?php
$theDate = time();
print date('d-m-y',$theDate);
print ("<br>");
print date('d-m-Y',$theDate);
print ("<br>");
print date('D-M-Y',$theDate);
print ("<br>");
print date('G-i-s',$theDate);
?>

PHP: Generate an alpha-numeric password salt

<?php
/**
 * This function generates an alpha-numeric password salt (with a default of 32 characters)
 * @param $max integer The number of characters in the string
 *
 */
function generateSalt($max = 32) {
$baseStr = time() . rand(0, 1000000) . rand(0, 1000000);
$md5Hash = md5($baseStr);
if($max < 32){
$md5Hash = substr($md5Hash, 0, $max);
}
return $md5Hash;
}

//Usage:
/*
echo "Salt with 32 characters:\n";
echo generateSalt() . "\n";
echo "Salt with 5 characters:\n";
echo generateSalt(5) . "\n";
*/
?>