Common formats for date function include Y (four-bit year), m (zero month), n (no zero month), d (zero date), j (no zero date), H (24-hour hours), h (12-hour hours), i (minutes), s (seconds), A (AM/PM), for example, date('Ymd H:i:s') outputs the standard time format; format Chinese customary time can be used to date('Y year n month j day H point i minute s seconds'), and paired with n and j to avoid leading zeros; converting timestamps requires passing in the value generated by strtotime as the second parameter; common techniques include using date('Ymd_His'), generating file names, using date('Y'), outputting copyright year, comparing whether the date is today, etc.
PHP's date function is very commonly used when processing time formats, but the format parameters are easy to remember. This article talks about several practical date format writing and common usages, which are convenient for quick reference in daily development.

How to write common format strings?
The first parameter of the date function is a format string, which is used to control the output time format. Here are some commonly used formats and their meanings:

-
Y
: four-digit year, such as 2024 -
y
: a double-digit year, such as 24 -
m
: Month (with leading zeros), such as 01 to 12 -
n
: Month (without leading zeros), such as 1 to 12 -
d
: Date (with leading zeros), such as 01 to 31 -
j
: Date (without leading zeros) -
H
: hours (24-hour system, with leading zeros) -
h
: hours (12-hour system with leading zeros) -
i
: minutes (00 to 59) -
s
: seconds (00 to 59) -
A
: Morning/PM capitalization (AM/PM)
for example:
echo date('Ymd H:i:s'); // The output is similar to 2024-04-05 14:30:00
How to format the time you are used to in Chinese?
Sometimes you need to output a format like "April 5, 2024 at 14:30". At this time, you can directly splice Chinese characters:

echo date('Y year n month j day H point i minute s second'); // The output is similar to 14:30:00 on April 5, 2024
Note: n
and j
here are used to remove leading zeros of month and date, respectively, so that it looks more natural.
If you want to add the day of the week, you can use:
-
l
(lowercase L): full week name, such as Friday -
D
: abbreviated as the week name, such as Fri
For example:
echo date('Y year n month j day l'); // The output is similar to April 5, 2024 Friday
How to convert timestamps into specified format?
By default, the date function uses the current time. If you want to format a specific timestamp, you can pass in the second parameter:
$timestamp = strtotime('2024-04-05 10:00:00'); echo date('Y/m/d', $timestamp); // Output 2024/04/05
Here we use strtotime to convert the string into a timestamp, and then use date to convert it back to the formatted string.
FAQ:
- The output result is wrong? Check if the time zone setting is forgotten.
- Time difference several hours? Considering whether the server time zone is consistent with what you expect, you can use
date_default_timezone_set()
to set it.
A few tips in actual development
- The time format used to generate file names :
date('Ymd_His')
is more suitable, such as 20240405_143000, which is convenient for sorting and searching. - Only the current year :
date('Y')
can be used to dynamically generate copyright information. - To determine whether it is today : you can use
date('Ym-d') == date('Ym-d', $timestamp)
to compare.
Basically that's it. By mastering a few key formatters, you can deal with most scenarios.
The above is the detailed content of php date format. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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