PHP strtotime() Function

Example

Parse English textual datetimes into Unix timestamps:

<?php
echo(strtotime("now") . " ");
echo(strtotime("3 October 2005") . " ");
echo(strtotime("+5 hours") . " ");
echo(strtotime("+1 week") . " ");
echo(strtotime("+1 week 3 days 7 hours 5 seconds") . " ");
echo(strtotime("next Monday") . " ");
echo(strtotime("last Sunday"));
?>

Try it Yourself »

Definition and Usage

The strtotime() function parses an English textual datetime into a Unix timestamp (the number of seconds since January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT).

Note: If the year is specified in a two-digit format, values between 0-69 are mapped to 2000-2069 and values between 70-100 are mapped to 1970-2000.

Note: Be aware of dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats; if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed. If the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed. To avoid potential errors, you should YYYY-MM-DD dates or date_create_from_format() when possible.

Syntax

strtotime(time, now);

Parameter Values

Parameter	Description
time	Required. Specifies a date/time string
now	Optional. Specifies the timestamp used as a base for the calculation of relative dates

Technical Details

Return Value:	Returns a timestamp on success. FALSE on failure
PHP Version:	4+
PHP Changelog:	PHP 5.3.0: Relative time formats such as this week, previous week, last week, and next week now interprets a week period of Monday through Sunday, rather then a 7-day period relative to the current date/time PHP 5.3.0: Now 24:00 is a valid format PHP 5.2.7: In earlier versions, if requesting a given occurrence of a given weekday in a month where that weekday was the first day of the month it would incorrectly add one week to the returned timestamp. This has been corrected now PHP 5.1.0: Returns FALSE on failure (earlier versions returns -1), and issues E_STRICT and E_NOTICE time zone errors PHP 5.0.2: Now correctly computes "now" and other relative times from current time, not from today's midnight PHP 5.0.0: Allows microseconds (but they are ignored)

❮ PHP Date/Time Reference