The most common method to get the current date in PHP is to use the date() function, such as echo date("Ymd H:i:s") to output the full date; if only the date is required, it can be written as echo date("Ymd"); if you need a more friendly format, you can use echo date("l, F j, Y") to output the English date; for complex scenarios, you are recommended to use the DateTime class, such as $date = new DateTime() and get the formatting time through $date->format("Ymd H:i:s"); at the same time, you can ensure that the time in the correct region can be obtained by specifying time zones such as Asia/Shanghai; precautions include affecting the output by default time zones, recommending the unified use of the DateTime class, and caching time to improve efficiency.
To get the current date, it is actually very simple in PHP. The most common method is to use date()
function. It can return the current date and time according to the format you specify.

Basic usage: Get the full date and time
echo date("Ymd H:i:s");
This outputs a format similar to 2025-04-05 14:30:45
. in:

-
Y
represents a four-digit year -
m
is a double-digit month -
d
is a double-digit date -
H
is a 24-hour hour -
i
is a minute -
s
is seconds
You can adjust the format as needed, for example, as long as the date is:
echo date("Ymd"); // Output: 2025-04-05
Get a more friendly date format
Sometimes you may want to display it more "human" like the English month or day of the week. You can also use date()
at this time, but the format characters are slightly changed:

echo date("l, F j, Y"); // Output: Saturday, April 5, 2025
-
l
(lowercase L) means the full day of the week name -
F
is the full month name -
j
is a date without leading zeros
This format is suitable for displaying more natural time information on web pages.
Use the DateTime class (recommended for complex scenarios)
If you are dealing with time zones, future dates, or doing date additions and subtraction operations, it is recommended to use the object-oriented DateTime
class:
$date = new DateTime(); echo $date->format("Ymd H:i:s");
This approach is more flexible, especially if you need to consider the time zone:
$date = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone("Asia/Shanghai")); echo $date->format("Ymd H:i:s");
This ensures that the current time in the specified region is obtained.
Notes and FAQs
- By default,
date()
uses the time zone where the server is located. If you find that the output time is inconsistent with the local area, it is likely that this is the reason. - It is recommended to use
DateTime
class uniformly in projects, especially when it involves internationalization or multi-time zones. - If you want the script to run more efficiently, you can also cache the current time and avoid multiple calls to the function.
Basically all this is the one, it is not complicated to implement, but it is easy to ignore the small details of the time zone and format.
The above is the detailed content of php get current date. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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