Using Date and Time Functions in PHP
| The following sections introduce you to the date- and time-related functions specifically in PHP. Try out each listing for yourself to see how simple and powerful these functions can be. Getting the Date with time()PHP's time() function gives you all the information you need about the current date and time. It requires no arguments and returns an integer. For us humans, the returned number is a little hard on the eyes, but it's extremely useful nonetheless. echo time(); // sample output: 1141137255 // this represents February 28, 2006 at 06:33AM The integer returned by time() represents the number of seconds elapsed since midnight GMT on January 1, 1970. This moment is known as the UNIX epoch, and the number of seconds that have elapsed since then is referred to as a time stamp. PHP offers excellent tools to convert a time stamp into a form that humans are comfortable with. Even so, you may think, "Isn't a time stamp a needlessly convoluted way of storing a date?" In fact, the opposite is true. From just one number, you can extract enormous amounts of information. Even better, a time stamp can make date arithmetic much easier than you might imagine. Think of a homegrown date system in which you record days of the month as well as months and years. Now imagine a script that must add one day to a given date. If this date happened to be 31 December 1999, rather than adding 1 to the date, you'd have to write code to set the day of the month to 1, the month to January, and the year to 2000. Using a time stamp, you need only add a day's worth of seconds (60 * 60 * 24, or 86400) to your current figure and you're done. You can convert this new figure into something friendlier, at your leisure. Converting a Time Stamp with getdate()Now that you have a time stamp to work with, you must convert it before you present it to the user. getdate() optionally accepts a time stamp and returns an associative array containing information about the date. If you omit the time stamp, getdate() works with the current time stamp as returned by time(). Table 10.3 lists the elements contained in the array returned by geTDate().
Listing 10.4 uses getdate() in line 2 to extract information from a time stamp, employing a foreach statement to print each element (line 3). You can see typical output in Figure 10.5. The getdate() function returns the date according to the local time zone. Figure 10.5. Using getdate(). Listing 10.4. Acquiring Date Information with getdate()
Converting a Time Stamp with date()You can use geTDate() when you want to work with the elements that it outputs. Sometimes, though, you want to display the date as a string. The date() function returns a formatted string that represents a date. You can exercise an enormous amount of control over the format that date() returns with a string argument that you must pass to it. In addition to the format string, date() optionally accepts a time stamp. Table 10.4 lists some of the codes that a format string can contain. You can find the complete list at http://www.php.net/date. Any other data you include in the format string passed to date() is included in the return value.
Listing 10.5 puts a few of these format codes to the test. Listing 10.5. Formatting a Date with date()
Listing 10.5 calls date() twice: the first time on line 3 to output an abbreviated date format, and the second time on line 6 for a longer format. Save the text of this listing in a file called datetest.php and open it in your web browser. Your date will differ from the following, obviously, but here's some sample output: 02/28/06 6:45:26 America/Los_Angeles Today is the 28th of February 2006, at 6:45am in America/Los_Angeles. Although the format string looks arcane, it's easy to build. If you want to add a string that contains letters that are also format codes to the format, you can escape them by placing a backslash (\) in front of them. For characters that become control characters when escaped, you must escape the backslash that precedes them. For example, \t is a format code for a tab, so to ensure that the tab prints, use \\t as in the example in Listing 10.5. Another example is in the context of a word you are adding to a string; for example, the. The word the is made up of three format codes, so all must be escaped: <?php echo date("l \\t\h\e jS"); //prints Tuesday the 28th ?>Also note that the date() function returns information according to your local time zone. If you want to format a date in GMT, you use the gmdate() function, which works in exactly the same way. Creating Time Stamps with mktime()You can already get information about the current time, but you cannot yet work with arbitrary dates. mktime() returns a time stamp that you can then use with date() or getdate(). mktime() accepts up to six integer arguments in the following order:
Listing 10.6 uses mktime() to get a time stamp that we then use with the date() function. Listing 10.6. Creating a Time Stamp with mktime()
We call mktime() on line 3 and assign the returned time stamp to the $ts variable. We then use the date() function on lines 4 and 7 to output formatted versions of the date using $ts. You can choose to omit some or all the arguments to mktime(), and the value appropriate to the current time is used instead. mktime() also adjusts for values that go beyond the relevant range, so an hour argument of 25 translates to 1:00 a.m. on the day after that specified in the month, day, and year arguments. Save the text of this listing in a file called mktimetest.php and open it in your web browser. You should see 02/28/06 6:48:00 America/Los_Angeles The date is 28th of February 2006, at 6:48am in America/Los_Angeles Testing a Date with checkdate()You might need to accept date information from user input. Before you work with a user-entered date or store it in a database, make sure that the date is valid. checkdate() accepts three integers: month, day, and year. checkdate() returns true if the month is between 1 and 12, the day is acceptable for the given month and year (accounting for leap years), and the year is between 0 and 32767. Be careful, though: A date might be valid but not acceptable to other date functions. For example, the following line returns TRue: checkdate(4, 4, 1066) If you were to attempt to build a date with mktime() using these values, you'd end up with a time stamp of -1. As a rule of thumb, don't use mktime() with years before 1902, and be cautious of using date functions with any date before 1970 because negative numbers are not valid dates. Because the UNIX epoch began January 1, 1970, anything before that is an invalid (negative) time stamp. |
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