PHP strtotime() Function Usage and Example

PHP Date & Time Function Manual

The strtotime() function parses any string description of date and time into Unix timestamp

Definition and usage

strtotime()Function function accepts text dates with/Date of the time value/Time string, and parse it into Unix timestamp.

Note: If the year is represented using a two-digit format, the value 0-69 will map to 2000-2069value 70-100 will map to 1970-2000.
Note: Please note m/d/y or d-m-y formatted date, if the separator is a slash (/），then use the American m/d/y format. If the separator is a hyphen (-) or a point (.), use the European d-m-y format. To avoid potential errors, you should use YYYY as much as possible-MM-DD format or use the date_create_from_format() function.

Syntax

strtotime($time)

Parameter

Return value

The PHP strtotime() function returns the timestamp value of the given date string. If it fails, this function will return a boolean valuefalse.

PHP version

This function was originally in PHP 4Introduced in version .0 and can be used in all higher versions.
PHP 5.3.0: The relative time format, such as this week, last week, the previous week, the next week, specifies a week from Monday to Sunday, rather than using a relative date to the current date/Time before and after 7 days.
PHP 5.3.0: Now 24:00 is a valid format.
PHP 5.2.7: In earlier versions, if you requested a specific date in a month and that date was the first day of the month, it would incorrectly add a week to the returned timestamp, which has now been corrected.
PHP 5.1.0: If it fails, it returns FALSE (in earlier versions it returned -1): Added E_STRICT and E_NOTICE timezone errors.
PHP 5.0.2: Now correctly calculates "now" and other relative times based on the current time, not based on midnight of today.
PHP 5.0.0: Allows microseconds (but microsecond numbers are usually ignored).

Online Example

The following examples demonstratestrtotime()Usage of the function-

<?php
　　　$str = strtotime("12　September　2009");
　　　print("Timestamp: ",$str);　
?>

Output Result

Timestamp:　1252713600

Online Example

If passed“ now”If used as a parameter, this function returns the current timestamp

<?php
　　　$str = strtotime("now");
　　　print("Timestamp: ",$str);　
?>

Output Result

Timestamp:　1589369948

Online Example

Now, let's call this method by passing various date values-

<?php
//　Set Time Zone
date_default_timezone_set("PRC");
$time = strtotime("2020-01-18　08:08:08");　　//　Convert a specified date to a timestamp　
//　Print the current time PHP_EOL newline character, compatible with different systems
echo $time, PHP_EOL;
　
//　More Examples
echo strtotime("now"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("now"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("10　September　2019"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("+1　day"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("+1　week"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("+1　week　2　days　4　hours　2　seconds"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("next Thursday"), PHP_EOL;
echo strtotime("last Monday"), PHP_EOL;
?>

This will produce the following output-

1579306088
1596165501
1596165501
1568044800
1596251901
1596770301
1596957503
1596643200
1595779200

Online Example

formatted as YYYY-MM-DD, and output the date

<?php
　　　$timestamp = strtotime("February　15,　2015" );　　　
　　　print date('Y-m-d', $timestamp );
?>

This will produce the following output-

2015-02-15