PHP gmdate() Function

Example

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

<?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");
?>

Try it Yourself »

Definition and Usage

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

Syntax

gmdate(format, timestamp)

Parameter Values

Parameter	Description
format	Required. Specifies the format of the outputted date string. The following characters can be used: d - The day of the month (from 01 to 31) D - A textual representation of a day (three letters) j - The day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31) l (lowercase 'L') - A full textual representation of a day N - The ISO-8601 numeric representation of a day (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 - A numeric representation of the day (0 for Sunday, 6 for Saturday) z - The day of the year (from 0 through 365) W - The ISO-8601 week number of year (weeks starting on Monday) F - A full textual representation of a month (January through December) m - A numeric representation of a month (from 01 to 12) M - A short textual representation of a month (three letters) n - A numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros (1 to 12) t - The number of days in the given month L - Whether it's a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise) o - The ISO-8601 year number Y - A four digit representation of a year y - A two digit representation of a year a - Lowercase am or pm A - Uppercase AM or PM B - Swatch Internet time (000 to 999) g - 12-hour format of an hour (1 to 12) G - 24-hour format of an hour (0 to 23) h - 12-hour format of an hour (01 to 12) H - 24-hour format of an hour (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 - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores) I (capital i) - Whether the date is in daylights savings time (1 if Daylight Savings 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 abbreviations (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 seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) and the following predefined constants can also be used (available since PHP 5.1.0): DATE_ATOM - Atom (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00) DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC) DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000) DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000) DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC) DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000) DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (example: 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 (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
timestamp	Optional. Specifies an integer Unix timestamp. Default is the current local time (time())

Parameter

Description

format

Required. Specifies the format of the outputted date string. The following characters can be used:

d - The day of the month (from 01 to 31)
D - A textual representation of a day (three letters)
j - The day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
l (lowercase 'L') - A full textual representation of a day
N - The ISO-8601 numeric representation of a day (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 - A numeric representation of the day (0 for Sunday, 6 for Saturday)
z - The day of the year (from 0 through 365)
W - The ISO-8601 week number of year (weeks starting on Monday)
F - A full textual representation of a month (January through December)
m - A numeric representation of a month (from 01 to 12)
M - A short textual representation of a month (three letters)
n - A numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros (1 to 12)
t - The number of days in the given month
L - Whether it's a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise)
o - The ISO-8601 year number
Y - A four digit representation of a year
y - A two digit representation of a year
a - Lowercase am or pm
A - Uppercase AM or PM
B - Swatch Internet time (000 to 999)
g - 12-hour format of an hour (1 to 12)
G - 24-hour format of an hour (0 to 23)
h - 12-hour format of an hour (01 to 12)
H - 24-hour format of an hour (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 - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores)
I (capital i) - Whether the date is in daylights savings time (1 if Daylight Savings 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 abbreviations (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 seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

and the following predefined constants can also be used (available since PHP 5.1.0):

DATE_ATOM - Atom (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000)
DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (example: 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 (example: 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 a formatted date string on success. FALSE on failure + an E_WARNING
PHP Version:	4+
PHP Changelog:	PHP 5.1: Valid range of timestamp is now from Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 GMT to Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 GMT. Before version 5.1 timestamp was limited from 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038 on some systems (e.g. Windows). PHP 5.1.1: Added the constants of standard date/time formats that can be used to specify the format parameter

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