PHP gmdate()Functions

PHP Date/TimePHP Date/Time Reference Manual

Examples

Format a GMT/UTC date and time, and return the formatted date string:

<?php
// Prints the day
echo gmdate("l") . "<br>";

// Prints the day, date, month, year, time, AM or PM
echo gmdate("l jS of F Y h:i:s A");
?>

Run Example »

Definition and Usage

The gmdate() function formats a GMT/UTC date and time, and returns the formatted date string.

Syntax

gmdate(format,timestamp);

Parameter Description
format Required. Specifies the format of the output date string. The following characters can be used:
  • d - Day of the month (from 01 to 31)
  • D - A textual representation of the day of the week (three letters)
  • j - Day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
  • l (lowercase 'L') - A full textual representation of the day of the week
  • N - The ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week (1 for Monday, 7 for Sunday)
  • S - The English ordinal suffix for the day of the month (2 characters: st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j)
  • w - Numeric representation of the day of the week (0 for Sunday, 6 for Saturday)
  • z - The day of the year (from 0 to 365)
  • W - The ISO-8601 week number of the year (weeks start on Monday)
  • F - A full textual representation of the month (January to December)
  • m - Numeric representation of the month (from 01 to 12)
  • M - A short textual representation of the month (three letters)
  • n - Numeric representation of the month without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • t - The number of days in the given month
  • L - Whether it is a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise)
  • o - The ISO-8601 year number
  • Y - A four-digit representation of the year
  • y - A two-digit representation of the year
  • a - Lowercase form: am or pm
  • A - Uppercase form: AM or PM
  • B - Swatch Internet Time (000 to 999)
  • g - 12-hour format without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • G - 24-hour format without leading zeros (0 to 23)
  • h - 12-hour format with leading zeros (01 to 12)
  • H - 24-hour format with leading zeros (00 to 23)
  • i - Minutes with leading zeros (00 to 59)
  • s - Seconds with leading zeros (00 to 59)
  • u - Microseconds (added in PHP 5.2.2)
  • e - Timezone identifier (e.g.: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores)
  • I (capital i) - Whether the date is in daylight saving time (1 if it is daylight saving time, 0 otherwise)
  • O - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours (example: +0100)
  • P - Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours:minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)
  • T - Timezone abbreviation (examples: EST, MDT)
  • Z - Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is negative (-43200 to 50400)
  • c - The ISO-8601 date (e.g. 2013-05-05T16:34:42+00:00)
  • r - The RFC 2822 formatted date (e.g. Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:01:05 +0200)
  • U - The number of seconds elapsed since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

Additionally, the following predefined constants can be used (available since PHP 5.1.0):

  • DATE_ATOM - Atom (e.g.: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
  • DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (e.g.: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (e.g.: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000)
  • DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (e.g.: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (e.g.: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (e.g.: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (e.g.: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC2822 - RFC 2822（Fri, 12 Apr 2013 15:52:01 +0000）
  • DATE_RFC3339 - Same as DATE_ATOM (since PHP 5.1.3)
  • DATE_RSS - RSS（Fri, 12 Aug 2013 15:52:01 +0000）
  • DATE_W3C - World Wide Web Consortium (e.g.: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
timestamp Optional. Specifies an integer Unix timestamp. Default is the current local time (time()).

Technical Details

Return value: Returns the formatted date string on success, or emits an E_WARNING and returns FALSE on failure.
PHP Version: 4+
Changelog: PHP 5.1.0: The valid range of timestamps is from Friday, December 13, 1901 20:45:54 GMT to Tuesday, January 19, 2038 03:14:07 GMT. Before version 5.1.0, on some systems (e.g. Windows) timestamps were limited to 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038.
PHP 5.1.1: Added standard date/time format constants for specifying the format parameter.

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