strftime

(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)

strftime — Format a local time/date according to locale settings

Description

string strftime ( string $format [, int $timestamp = time() ] )

Format the time and/or date according to locale settings. Month and weekday names and other language-dependent strings respect the current locale set with setlocale().

Not all conversion specifiers may be supported by your C library, in which case they will not be supported by PHP's strftime(). Additionally, not all platforms support negative timestamps, so your date range may be limited to no earlier than the Unix epoch. This means that %e, %T, %R and, %D (and possibly others) - as well as dates prior to Jan 1, 1970 - will not work on Windows, some Linux distributions, and a few other operating systems. For Windows systems, a complete overview of supported conversion specifiers can be found at » MSDN.

Parameters

format

**The following characters are recognized in the `format` parameter string**
`format`	Description	Example returned values
Day	---	---
%a	An abbreviated textual representation of the day	Sun through Sat
%A	A full textual representation of the day	Sunday through Saturday
%d	Two-digit day of the month (with leading zeros)	01 to 31
%e	Day of the month, with a space preceding single digits. Not implemented as described on Windows. See below for more information.	1 to 31
%j	Day of the year, 3 digits with leading zeros	001 to 366
%u	ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week	1 (for Monday) through 7 (for Sunday)
%w	Numeric representation of the day of the week	0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday)
Week	---	---
%U	Week number of the given year, starting with the first Sunday as the first week	13 (for the 13th full week of the year)
%V	ISO-8601:1988 week number of the given year, starting with the first week of the year with at least 4 weekdays, with Monday being the start of the week	01 through 53 (where 53 accounts for an overlapping week)
%W	A numeric representation of the week of the year, starting with the first Monday as the first week	46 (for the 46th week of the year beginning with a Monday)
Month	---	---
%b	Abbreviated month name, based on the locale	Jan through Dec
%B	Full month name, based on the locale	January through December
%h	Abbreviated month name, based on the locale (an alias of %b)	Jan through Dec
%m	Two digit representation of the month	01 (for January) through 12 (for December)
Year	---	---
%C	Two digit representation of the century (year divided by 100, truncated to an integer)	19 for the 20th Century
%g	Two digit representation of the year going by ISO-8601:1988 standards (see %V)	Example: 09 for the week of January 6, 2009
%G	The full four-digit version of %g	Example: 2008 for the week of January 3, 2009
%y	Two digit representation of the year	Example: 09 for 2009, 79 for 1979
%Y	Four digit representation for the year	Example: 2038
Time	---	---
%H	Two digit representation of the hour in 24-hour format	00 through 23
%k	Hour in 24-hour format, with a space preceding single digits	0 through 23
%I	Two digit representation of the hour in 12-hour format	01 through 12
%l (lower-case 'L')	Hour in 12-hour format, with a space preceding single digits	1 through 12
%M	Two digit representation of the minute	00 through 59
%p	UPPER-CASE 'AM' or 'PM' based on the given time	Example: AM for 00:31, PM for 22:23
%P	lower-case 'am' or 'pm' based on the given time	Example: am for 00:31, pm for 22:23
%r	Same as "%I:%M:%S %p"	Example: 09:34:17 PM for 21:34:17
%R	Same as "%H:%M"	Example: 00:35 for 12:35 AM, 16:44 for 4:44 PM
%S	Two digit representation of the second	00 through 59
%T	Same as "%H:%M:%S"	Example: 21:34:17 for 09:34:17 PM
%X	Preferred time representation based on locale, without the date	Example: 03:59:16 or 15:59:16
%z	The time zone offset. Not implemented as described on Windows. See below for more information.	Example: -0500 for US Eastern Time
%Z	The time zone abbreviation. Not implemented as described on Windows. See below for more information.	Example: EST for Eastern Time
Time and Date Stamps	---	---
%c	Preferred date and time stamp based on locale	Example: Tue Feb 5 00:45:10 2009 for February 5, 2009 at 12:45:10 AM
%D	Same as "%m/%d/%y"	Example: 02/05/09 for February 5, 2009
%F	Same as "%Y-%m-%d" (commonly used in database datestamps)	Example: 2009-02-05 for February 5, 2009
%s	Unix Epoch Time timestamp (same as the time() function)	Example: 305815200 for September 10, 1979 08:40:00 AM
%x	Preferred date representation based on locale, without the time	Example: 02/05/09 for February 5, 2009
Miscellaneous	---	---
%n	A newline character ("\n")	---
%t	A Tab character ("\t")	---
%%	A literal percentage character ("%")	---

Maximum length of this parameter is 1023 characters.

Warning

Contrary to ISO-9899:1999, Sun Solaris starts with Sunday as 1. As a result, %u may not function as described in this manual.

Warning

Windows only:

The %e modifier is not supported in the Windows implementation of this function. To achieve this value, the %#d modifier can be used instead. The example below illustrates how to write a cross platform compatible function.

The %z and %Z modifiers both return the time zone name instead of the offset or abbreviation.

Warning

Mac OS X only: The %P modifier is not supported in the Mac OS X implementation of this function.

timestamp

The optional timestamp parameter is an integer Unix timestamp that defaults to the current local time if a timestamp is not given. In other words, it defaults to the value of time().

Return Values

Returns a string formatted according format using the given timestamp or the current local time if no timestamp is given. Month and weekday names and other language-dependent strings respect the current locale set with setlocale().

Errors/Exceptions

Every call to a date/time function will generate a E_NOTICE if the time zone is not valid, and/or a E_STRICT or E_WARNING message if using the system settings or the TZ environment variable. See also date_default_timezone_set()

As the output is dependent upon the underlying C library, some conversion specifiers are not supported. On Windows, supplying unknown conversion specifiers will result in 5 E_WARNING messages and return FALSE. On other operating systems you may not get any E_WARNING messages and the output may contain the conversion specifiers unconverted.

Changelog

Version	Description
5.1.0	Now issues the `E_STRICT` and `E_NOTICE` time zone errors.

Examples

This example will work if you have the respective locales installed in your system.

Example #1 strftime() locale examples


<?php
setlocale(LC_TIME, "C");
echo strftime("%A");
setlocale(LC_TIME, "fi_FI");
echo strftime(" in Finnish is %A,");
setlocale(LC_TIME, "fr_FR");
echo strftime(" in French %A and");
setlocale(LC_TIME, "de_DE");
echo strftime(" in German %A.\n");
?>

Example #2 ISO 8601:1988 week number example


<?php
/*     December 2002 / January 2003
ISOWk  M   Tu  W   Thu F   Sa  Su
----- ----------------------------
51     16  17  18  19  20  21  22
52     23  24  25  26  27  28  29
1      30  31   1   2   3   4   5
2       6   7   8   9  10  11  12
3      13  14  15  16  17  18  19   */

// Outputs: 12/28/2002 - %V,%G,%Y = 52,2002,2002
echo "12/28/2002 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y", strtotime("12/28/2002")) . "\n";

// Outputs: 12/30/2002 - %V,%G,%Y = 1,2003,2002
echo "12/30/2002 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y", strtotime("12/30/2002")) . "\n";

// Outputs: 1/3/2003 - %V,%G,%Y = 1,2003,2003
echo "1/3/2003 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y",strtotime("1/3/2003")) . "\n";

// Outputs: 1/10/2003 - %V,%G,%Y = 2,2003,2003
echo "1/10/2003 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y",strtotime("1/10/2003")) . "\n";



/*     December 2004 / January 2005
ISOWk  M   Tu  W   Thu F   Sa  Su
----- ----------------------------
51     13  14  15  16  17  18  19
52     20  21  22  23  24  25  26
53     27  28  29  30  31   1   2
1       3   4   5   6   7   8   9
2      10  11  12  13  14  15  16   */

// Outputs: 12/23/2004 - %V,%G,%Y = 52,2004,2004
echo "12/23/2004 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y",strtotime("12/23/2004")) . "\n";

// Outputs: 12/31/2004 - %V,%G,%Y = 53,2004,2004
echo "12/31/2004 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y",strtotime("12/31/2004")) . "\n";

// Outputs: 1/2/2005 - %V,%G,%Y = 53,2004,2005
echo "1/2/2005 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y",strtotime("1/2/2005")) . "\n";

// Outputs: 1/3/2005 - %V,%G,%Y = 1,2005,2005
echo "1/3/2005 - %V,%G,%Y = " . strftime("%V,%G,%Y",strtotime("1/3/2005")) . "\n";

?>

Example #3 Cross platform compatible example using the %e modifier


<?php

// Jan 1: results in: '%e%1%' (%%, e, %%, %e, %%)
$format = '%%e%%%e%%';

// Check for Windows to find and replace the %e 
// modifier correctly
if (strtoupper(substr(PHP_OS, 0, 3)) == 'WIN') {
    $format = preg_replace('#(?<!%)((?:%%)*)%e#', '\1%#d', $format);
}

echo strftime($format);
?>

Example #4 Display all known and unknown formats.


<?php
// Describe the formats.
$strftimeFormats = array(
    'A' => 'A full textual representation of the day',
    'B' => 'Full month name, based on the locale',
    'C' => 'Two digit representation of the century (year divided by 100, truncated to an integer)',
    'D' => 'Same as "%m/%d/%y"',
    'E' => '',
    'F' => 'Same as "%Y-%m-%d"',
    'G' => 'The full four-digit version of %g',
    'H' => 'Two digit representation of the hour in 24-hour format',
    'I' => 'Two digit representation of the hour in 12-hour format',
    'J' => '',
    'K' => '',
    'L' => '',
    'M' => 'Two digit representation of the minute',
    'N' => '',
    'O' => '',
    'P' => 'lower-case "am" or "pm" based on the given time',
    'Q' => '',
    'R' => 'Same as "%H:%M"',
    'S' => 'Two digit representation of the second',
    'T' => 'Same as "%H:%M:%S"',
    'U' => 'Week number of the given year, starting with the first Sunday as the first week',
    'V' => 'ISO-8601:1988 week number of the given year, starting with the first week of the year with at least 4 weekdays, with Monday being the start of the week',
    'W' => 'A numeric representation of the week of the year, starting with the first Monday as the first week',
    'X' => 'Preferred time representation based on locale, without the date',
    'Y' => 'Four digit representation for the year',
    'Z' => 'The time zone offset/abbreviation option NOT given by %z (depends on operating system)',
    'a' => 'An abbreviated textual representation of the day',
    'b' => 'Abbreviated month name, based on the locale',
    'c' => 'Preferred date and time stamp based on local',
    'd' => 'Two-digit day of the month (with leading zeros)',
    'e' => 'Day of the month, with a space preceding single digits',
    'f' => '',
    'g' => 'Two digit representation of the year going by ISO-8601:1988 standards (see %V)',
    'h' => 'Abbreviated month name, based on the locale (an alias of %b)',
    'i' => '',
    'j' => 'Day of the year, 3 digits with leading zeros',
    'k' => 'Hour in 24-hour format, with a space preceding single digits',
    'l' => 'Hour in 12-hour format, with a space preceding single digits',
    'm' => 'Two digit representation of the month',
    'n' => 'A newline character ("\n")',
    'o' => '',
    'p' => 'UPPER-CASE "AM" or "PM" based on the given time',
    'q' => '',
    'r' => 'Same as "%I:%M:%S %p"',
    's' => 'Unix Epoch Time timestamp',
    't' => 'A Tab character ("\t")',
    'u' => 'ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week',
    'v' => '',
    'w' => 'Numeric representation of the day of the week',
    'x' => 'Preferred date representation based on locale, without the time',
    'y' => 'Two digit representation of the year',
    'z' => 'Either the time zone offset from UTC or the abbreviation (depends on operating system)',
    '%' => 'A literal percentage character ("%")',
);

// Results.
$strftimeValues = array();

// Evaluate the formats whilst suppressing any errors.
foreach($strftimeFormats as $format => $description){
    if (False !== ($value = @strftime("%{$format}"))){
        $strftimeValues[$format] = $value;
    }
}

// Find the longest value.
$maxValueLength = 2 + max(array_map('strlen', $strftimeValues));

// Report known formats.
foreach($strftimeValues as $format => $value){
    echo "Known format   : '{$format}' = ", str_pad("'{$value}'", $maxValueLength), " ( {$strftimeFormats[$format]} )\n";
}

// Report unknown formats.
foreach(array_diff_key($strftimeFormats, $strftimeValues) as $format => $description){
    echo "Unknown format : '{$format}'   ", str_pad(' ', $maxValueLength), ($description ? " ( {$description} )" : ''), "\n";
}
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

Known format   : 'A' = 'Friday'            ( A full textual representation of the day )
Known format   : 'B' = 'December'          ( Full month name, based on the locale )
Known format   : 'H' = '11'                ( Two digit representation of the hour in 24-hour format )
Known format   : 'I' = '11'                ( Two digit representation of the hour in 12-hour format )
Known format   : 'M' = '24'                ( Two digit representation of the minute )
Known format   : 'S' = '44'                ( Two digit representation of the second )
Known format   : 'U' = '48'                ( Week number of the given year, starting with the first Sunday as the first week )
Known format   : 'W' = '48'                ( A numeric representation of the week of the year, starting with the first Monday as the first week )
Known format   : 'X' = '11:24:44'          ( Preferred time representation based on locale, without the date )
Known format   : 'Y' = '2010'              ( Four digit representation for the year )
Known format   : 'Z' = 'GMT Standard Time' ( The time zone offset/abbreviation option NOT given by %z (depends on operating system) )
Known format   : 'a' = 'Fri'               ( An abbreviated textual representation of the day )
Known format   : 'b' = 'Dec'               ( Abbreviated month name, based on the locale )
Known format   : 'c' = '12/03/10 11:24:44' ( Preferred date and time stamp based on local )
Known format   : 'd' = '03'                ( Two-digit day of the month (with leading zeros) )
Known format   : 'j' = '337'               ( Day of the year, 3 digits with leading zeros )
Known format   : 'm' = '12'                ( Two digit representation of the month )
Known format   : 'p' = 'AM'                ( UPPER-CASE "AM" or "PM" based on the given time )
Known format   : 'w' = '5'                 ( Numeric representation of the day of the week )
Known format   : 'x' = '12/03/10'          ( Preferred date representation based on locale, without the time )
Known format   : 'y' = '10'                ( Two digit representation of the year )
Known format   : 'z' = 'GMT Standard Time' ( Either the time zone offset from UTC or the abbreviation (depends on operating system) )
Known format   : '%' = '%'                 ( A literal percentage character ("%") )
Unknown format : 'C'                       ( Two digit representation of the century (year divided by 100, truncated to an integer) )
Unknown format : 'D'                       ( Same as "%m/%d/%y" )
Unknown format : 'E'
Unknown format : 'F'                       ( Same as "%Y-%m-%d" )
Unknown format : 'G'                       ( The full four-digit version of %g )
Unknown format : 'J'
Unknown format : 'K'
Unknown format : 'L'
Unknown format : 'N'
Unknown format : 'O'
Unknown format : 'P'                       ( lower-case "am" or "pm" based on the given time )
Unknown format : 'Q'
Unknown format : 'R'                       ( Same as "%H:%M" )
Unknown format : 'T'                       ( Same as "%H:%M:%S" )
Unknown format : 'V'                       ( ISO-8601:1988 week number of the given year, starting with the first week of the year with at least 4 weekdays, with Monday being the start of the week )
Unknown format : 'e'                       ( Day of the month, with a space preceding single digits )
Unknown format : 'f'
Unknown format : 'g'                       ( Two digit representation of the year going by ISO-8601:1988 standards (see %V) )
Unknown format : 'h'                       ( Abbreviated month name, based on the locale (an alias of %b) )
Unknown format : 'i'
Unknown format : 'k'                       ( Hour in 24-hour format, with a space preceding single digits )
Unknown format : 'l'                       ( Hour in 12-hour format, with a space preceding single digits )
Unknown format : 'n'                       ( A newline character ("\n") )
Unknown format : 'o'
Unknown format : 'q'
Unknown format : 'r'                       ( Same as "%I:%M:%S %p" )
Unknown format : 's'                       ( Unix Epoch Time timestamp )
Unknown format : 't'                       ( A Tab character ("\t") )
Unknown format : 'u'                       ( ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week )
Unknown format : 'v'

Notes

Note: %G and %V, which are based on ISO 8601:1988 week numbers can give unexpected (albeit correct) results if the numbering system is not thoroughly understood. See %V examples in this manual page.

User Contributed Notes 35 notes

down

raf at sns dot pm ¶

1 year ago


For all those who work with WampServer on Windows, 
I propose you a formatting(layout) of date as " Friday, January 1st, 2016 " instead of " Friday, January 01st, 2016 " (note the zero in front of 1) which works at the same time on Windows / WampServer and on (on-line) Linux / waiter.
There are problems with "%e" - > which(who) works on Linux and not on Windows - > "%#d" (this works on windows/wampserver)
I simply made a condition: 
<?php
if ($_SERVER['SERVER_NAME'] == "website.com") // On line
{
   $number_of_the_day= "%e"; // Number of the day without "0"
}
else 
{
   $number_of_the_day = "%#d";  // The same on Windows/Wampserver
} 

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'fr_FR.utf8','fra'); // I'm french !

// i use this fonction ucfirst('string') for "V" Maj. and "J" Maj.

echo ucfirst(strftime('%A '.$number_of_the_day.' %B %Y')); 

//  "Vendredi 1 Janvier 2016"  (->  without "0")
?>
Here we are, I hope to have helped.

down

Bondas Timotei ¶

5 years ago


If strange characters are returned use utf8_encode(strftime()) for UTF-8 characters

down

Anonymous ¶

6 years ago


%V may fail with some systems (Windows XP, at least). Here is a function that should work to get the week number of a day (timestamped), according to ISO 8601.

"should work" as in "it is working with my understanding of this norm", where 1st of january can be week 52, 53 or 01. Hopefully.

testing (php_uname("s") == "Windows NT") or equivalent can be an option (when switching between Wampserver and a GNU server, for instance).

Please, erase and correct my message if there is any error.

<?php
function week_isonumber ($time) {
// When strftime("%V") fails, some unoptimized workaround
//
// http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 : week 1 is "the week with the year's first Thursday in it (the formal ISO definition)"

    $year = strftime("%Y", $time);

    $first_day = strftime("%w", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, $year));
    $last_day = strftime("%w", mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 31, $year));
        
    $number = $isonumber = strftime("%W", $time);

    // According to strftime("%W"), 1st of january is in week 1 if and only if it is a monday
    if ($first_day == 1)
        $isonumber--;

    // 1st of january is between monday and thursday; starting (now) at 0 when it should be 1
    if ($first_day >= 1 && $first_day <= 4)
        $isonumber++;
    else if ($number == 0)
        $isonumber = week_isonumber(mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 31, $year - 1));

    if ($isonumber == 53 && ($last_day == 1 || $last_day == 2 || $last_day == 3))
        $isonumber = 1;

    return sprintf("%02d", $isonumber);
}
?>

down

eric dot brison at anakeen dot com ¶

2 years ago


strftime not format microsecond (decimal part of seconds).
This function add '%f' key in format to render microsecond (6 digits) also.

<?php
/**
 * @param string $format strftime format
 * @param float $microtime time with microsecond
 * @return string
 */
function strftimeu($format, $microtime)
{
    if (preg_match('/^[0-9]*\\.([0-9]+)$/', $microtime, $reg)) {
        $decimal = substr(str_pad($reg[1], 6, "0"), 0, 6);
    } else {
        $decimal = "000000";
    }
    $format = preg_replace('/(%f)/', $decimal, $format);
    return strftime($format, $microtime);
}
?>

Example :
<?php
$now=microtime(true);
printf("REF:%s\n",$now );
printf("FMT:%s\n", strftimeu('%H:%M:%S.%f', $now));
?>

Results are :
REF:1393937303.6615
FMT:13:48:23.661500
FMT:13h 48min 23s 661500µs

Note : Here the decimal part of microtime is on 4 digits due to default precision

down

ciprianmp at yahoo dot com ¶

6 years ago


This worked for me to distinguish between windows and linux, for stripping leading zeros from days/months in the short formats (like for Czech):
stristr(PHP_OS,"win") ? "%#d.%#m.%Y" : "%-d.%-m.%Y"

down

jw at jwscripts dot com ¶

11 years ago


The following function implements the conversion specifiers which are not supported on Win32 platforms:

(Note: the specifiers %V, %G and %g can be implemented using other functions described in this section)

<?php

function strftime_win32($format, $ts = null) {
    if (!$ts) $ts = time();

    $mapping = array(
        '%C' => sprintf("%02d", date("Y", $ts) / 100),
        '%D' => '%m/%d/%y',
        '%e' => sprintf("%' 2d", date("j", $ts)),
        '%h' => '%b',
        '%n' => "\n",
        '%r' => date("h:i:s", $ts) . " %p",
        '%R' => date("H:i", $ts),
        '%t' => "\t",
        '%T' => '%H:%M:%S',
        '%u' => ($w = date("w", $ts)) ? $w : 7
    );
    $format = str_replace(
        array_keys($mapping),
        array_values($mapping),
        $format
    );

    return strftime($format, $ts);
}

?>

down

fmaz008 at gmail dot com ¶

5 years ago


The example of the workarround for the %e modifier is a bit complex. Sometime you might want to prefer a simple ltrim():

<?php
ltrim(strftime('%d', $time), '0');
?>

down

Josue R. ¶

8 years ago


Here's a simple version for date formating i use between displaying in HTML and converting back to MYSQL format:



<?php

function format_date($original='', $format="%m/%d/%Y") {

    $format = ($format=='date' ? "%m-%d-%Y" : $format);

    $format = ($format=='datetime' ? "%m-%d-%Y %H:%M:%S" : $format);

    $format = ($format=='mysql-date' ? "%Y-%m-%d" : $format);

    $format = ($format=='mysql-datetime' ? "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S" : $format);

    return (!empty($original) ? strftime($format, strtotime($original)) : "" );

}

?>



example (in HTML or webapp):

[grab from database]...

$dbase_stored_date = "2007-03-15";

$display_html_date = format_date($dbase_stored_date);

... displays as "03/15/2007"



example (saving form via on POST/GET):

$update_date = format_date($_POST['display_html_date'], 'mysql-date');

// converts back to '2007-03-15'

.... [your mysql update here]



Don't forget to sanitize your POST/GET's   =)

down

th1nk3r at gmail dot DELETETHIS dot com ¶

10 years ago


Function strftime() use the locales installed in your system (linux). 

If you are like me and only leave in the system the locales you use normally (en_US and your own language locale, like es_ES), you'll only be able to use the locales installed. If your application is translated to other languages, you need these locales too.

The name of the locale in your system is important too. This can be a problem when you want to distribute the app.

If you have this locales in your system:
en_US/ISO-8859-1
en_US.UTF-8/UTF-8
es_ES/ISO-8859-1
es_ES@euro/ISO-8859-15
es_ES.UTF-8/UTF-8
es_ES@euro/UTF-8

and use setlocale('es_ES'), the result will use the iso-8859-1 charset even if you have all your system, files and configuration options in UTF-8. To receive content in UTF-8, in this example, you need to use setlocale('es_ES.UTF-8') or setlocale('es_ES.UTF-8@UTF-8').

The definition of locales can change from one system to another, and so the charset from the results.

down

Lemmi ¶

6 years ago


Why not use utf8_encode to fix problems with letters in ISO-8859-1 and charset set to UTF-8?

For example:
<?php

setlocale(LC_TIME, "de_DE");
echo utf8_encode(strftime('%B')); // Output e.g.: März

?>

down

szilagyigabor at yahoo dot com ¶

7 years ago


This is that worked with UTF-8 encoding on Linux server, with right accents:
<?php
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'hu_HU.UTF8');
echo(strftime('%Y. %B %d. %A'));
?>

Output is:
2009. november 02. hétfő

Also, this one can be used, if not utf-8 preferred:
<?php
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'hu_HU.ISO8859-2');
?>

UTF-8 is not supported on windows platforms, so there the iconv workaround must be used:
<?php
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'hun_hun');
echo(iconv('ISO-8859-2', 'UTF-8',strftime('%Y. %B %d. %A')));
?>

The output is the same as before. Note that, the iconv first parameter is ISO-8859-2 not ISO-8859-1, because the locale is hungarian which uses 8859-2 codepage as default. It is needed for the right accents.

If you want use the same code for Windows and Linux platforms, the second one is the right option (the iconv trick), but the locale configuration must be different (Linux: hu_HU, windows: hun_hun), but in that case the UTF8 tag is not needed for the Linux config.

down

denis at ibresource dot ru ¶

2 years ago


%p and %P replaced to '' in ru and other locales so 20:10 in %I:%M %p will be 08:10 in russian (without pm)

down

neo at gothic-chat d0t de ¶

12 years ago


To get a RFC 850 date (used in HTTP) of the current time:

gmstrftime ("%A %d-%b-%y %T %Z", time ());

This will get for example:
Friday 25-Jun-04 03:30:23 GMT

Please note that times in HTTP-headers _must_ be GMT, so use gmstrftime() instead of strftime().

down

baptiste dot place at utopiaweb dot fr ¶

6 years ago


Created this small method to convert a date format to a strftime format. One format is enough to learn :)



<?php

/**

 * Convert a date format to a strftime format

 * 

 * Timezone conversion is done for unix. Windows users must exchange %z and %Z.

 * 

 * Unsupported date formats : S, n, t, L, B, G, u, e, I, P, Z, c, r

 * Unsupported strftime formats : %U, %W, %C, %g, %r, %R, %T, %X, %c, %D, %F, %x 

 * 

 * @param string $dateFormat a date format

 * @return string

 */

public static function dateFormatToStrftime($dateFormat) {

    

    $caracs = array(

        // Day - no strf eq : S

        'd' => '%d', 'D' => '%a', 'j' => '%e', 'l' => '%A', 'N' => '%u', 'w' => '%w', 'z' => '%j', 

        // Week - no date eq : %U, %W

        'W' => '%V',  

        // Month - no strf eq : n, t

        'F' => '%B', 'm' => '%m', 'M' => '%b', 

        // Year - no strf eq : L; no date eq : %C, %g

        'o' => '%G', 'Y' => '%Y', 'y' => '%y', 

        // Time - no strf eq : B, G, u; no date eq : %r, %R, %T, %X

        'a' => '%P', 'A' => '%p', 'g' => '%l', 'h' => '%I', 'H' => '%H', 'i' => '%M', 's' => '%S',

        // Timezone - no strf eq : e, I, P, Z

        'O' => '%z', 'T' => '%Z',

        // Full Date / Time - no strf eq : c, r; no date eq : %c, %D, %F, %x  

        'U' => '%s' 

    );

    

    return strtr((string)$dateFormat, $caracs);

}

?>



I use it with this condition on a date format : 

if(preg_match("/(D|l|F|M)/", $format))

down

eljaunis at gmail dot com ¶

8 years ago


This is what worked in my case:

<?php
    setlocale(LC_ALL, 'es_ES').': ';
    echo iconv('ISO-8859-1', 'UTF-8', strftime('%A %d de %B de %Y', time()));
    ?>

it displays: miércoles 22 de octubre de 2008

down

dgudgeon at example dot com ¶

5 years ago


If moving from date() to strftime() to support additional languages, you may miss the ordinal suffix format option date('S'). Workaround this by adding an extra modifier (%O).

<?php
function my_strftime ($format, $timestamp)
{
    $format = str_replace('%O', date('S', $timestamp), $format);    
    return strftime($format, $timestamp);
}
?>

down

lamb dot dan at gmail dot com ¶

8 years ago


<?php
/*
*    This function figures out what fiscal year a specified date is in.
*    $inputDate - the date you wish to find the fiscal year for. (12/4/08)
*    $fyStartDate - the month and day your fiscal year starts. (7/1)
*    $fyEndDate - the month and day your fiscal year ends. (6/30)
*    $fy - returns the correct fiscal year
*/
function calculateFiscalYearForDate($inputDate, $fyStart, $fyEnd){
    $date = strtotime($inputDate);
    $inputyear = strftime('%Y',$date);
        
    $fystartdate = strtotime($fyStart.$inputyear);
    $fyenddate = strtotime($fyEnd.$inputyear);

    if($date < $fyenddate){
        $fy = intval($inputyear);
    }else{
        $fy = intval(intval($inputyear) + 1);
    }
    
    return $fy;
    
}

// my fiscal year starts on July,1 and ends on June 30, so...
echo calculateFiscalYearForDate("5/15/08","7/1","6/30");
// returns 2008

echo calculateFiscalYearForDate("12/1/08","7/1","6/30");
// returns 2009
?>

down

alexbrtn@gmail dot com ¶

3 years ago


{--}, it is replaced on "today" or "yesterday"

down

denis at spiralsolutions dot com ¶

10 years ago


(in addition to Andy's post)

To get a RFC 2822 date (used in RSS) of the current local time :



echo strftime ("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S %z") ;



Note: option %z / %Z - work different on Windows platform, for example

output of this code line can be:

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 09:54:59 Jerusalem Standard Time (on Windows)

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 09:54:59 +0200                   (on Linux)



[red. It is much smarter to use date(DATE_RSS); here]

down

Chad ¶

7 years ago


On the Linux server I'm using, strftime() also accepts a "-" option to request no padding:

<?php
$ts = strtotime("4 Nov 2009");
echo strlen(strftime("%-e", $ts)), "\n"; // "1" (no padding)
echo strlen(strftime("%e", $ts)), "\n"; // "2" (space padded)
?>

down

Chris ¶

5 years ago


Sometimes, you want Jan 1 to be week 1 and weeks to begin on Sunday. Here's a way to use strftime U format character to follow this convention:
<?php
$month = 5; $year = 2012; echo "Week #'s in May 2012: ";
$week_num_correction = strftime('%U', mktime(0,0,0,1,1,$year)) === '00' ? 1 : 0;
$week_numbers = range(strftime('%U', mktime(0,0,0,$month,1,$year)) + $week_num_correction, strftime('%U', mktime(0,0,0,$month+1,0,$year)) + $week_num_correction);
foreach($week_numbers as $week_number) echo "$week_number ";
?>
displays: Week #'s in May 2012: 18 19 20 21 22

down

Uwe at Familie-Loyal dot de ¶

3 years ago


more fixed Problems while uing strftime in win32-systems.

        function strftime_win32($format, $ts = null) { 
                if (!$ts) $ts = time(); 
        
                $mapping = array( 
                                '%C' => sprintf("%02d", date("Y", $ts) / 100), 
                                '%D' => '%m/%d/%y', 
                                '%e' => sprintf("%' 2d", date("j", $ts)), 
                                '%h' => '%b', 
                                '%n' => "\n", 
                                '%r' => date("h:i:s", $ts) . " %p", 
                                '%R' => date("H:i", $ts), 
                                '%t' => "\t", 
                                '%T' => '%H:%M:%S', 
                                '%u' => ($w = date("w", $ts)) ? $w : 7 
                ); 
                $format = str_replace( 
                                array_keys($mapping), 
                                array_values($mapping), 
                                $format 
                ); 
                
                if($format=='%V' or $format=='%G' or $format=='%g'){ 
                        // When strftime("%V") fails, some unoptimized workaround 
                        // 
                        // http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601 : week 1 is "the week with the year's first Thursday in it (the formal ISO definition)"

                        
                        $year = strftime("%Y", $ts); 
                        $isoyear=$year; 
                        
                        $first_day = strftime("%w", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, $year)); 
                        $last_day = strftime("%w", mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 31, $year)); 
                        
                        $number = $isonumber = strftime("%W", $ts); 
                        
                        // According to strftime("%W"), 1st of january is in week 1 if and only if it is a monday 
                        if ($first_day == 1) { 
                                $isonumber--; 
                        } 
                        
                        // 1st of january is between monday and thursday; starting (now) at 0 when it should be 1 
                        if ($first_day >= 1 && $first_day <= 4){ 
                                $isonumber++; 
                                $isoyear=$year; 
                        }elseif ($number == 0){ 
                                $isonumber = mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 31, $year - 1); 
                                $isoyear=$year; 
                        } 
                        if ($isonumber == 53 && ($last_day == 1 || $last_day == 2 || $last_day == 3)){ 
                                $isonumber = 1; 
                                $isoyear=$year+1; 
                        } 
                        if ($format=='%V') { 
                                return sprintf("%02d", $isonumber); 
                        }elseif ($format=='%G'){ 
                                return sprintf("%04d", $isoyear); 
                        }elseif ($format=='%g'){ 
                                return substr(sprintf("%04d", $isoyear),-2); 
                        } 
                        
                                
                }else{ 
                        return strftime($format, $ts); 
                } 
        }

down

buana95 at yahoo dot com ¶

8 years ago


For windows user:

If you unsuccessfully change date/time format to your locale country using xx_XX format, try using XXX format or ISO-639 country codes format.

See complete list for ISO-639 here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/IG/ert/iso639.htm

For example:

<?php
setlocale(LC_ALL, 'IND');
echo strftime("Today in Indonesia is %A");
?>

down

ma ¶

9 years ago


note, that for some languages you MUST set LC_ALL instead of LC_TIME.

note that you further have to explicitly define your output-encoding (default is ISO-8859-1 [which makes problems for some languages])!

at least i expirienced this behaviour on a german WinXP-PHP4 environment:

<?php

// does not work - gives question marks:
setlocale(LC_TIME, 'RUS'); // ISO Alpha-3 is supported by xp
echo strftime('%A', time());

?>

<?php

// DOES work:
header('Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8'); // you could also use another charset here if iconv isn't installed on your system.

echo setlocale(LC_ALL, 'RUS').': ';
echo iconv('windows-1251', 'UTF-8', strftime('%A', time()))."\n";

?>

down

Jon Keating ¶

11 years ago


Under windows if you are using Japanese version, you must use the following code:

setlocale(LC_ALL, "Japanese_Japan.20932") for EUC
setlocale(LC_ALL, "Japanese_Japan.932") for SJIS

I found the following page that helped me with this issue:
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=8329

down

lichihwu at gmail dot com ¶

2 years ago


strftime() will get local time using timezone setting from date_default_timezone_set, then send format and converted tm structure to strftime() system call.

So it will output time stamp string ("%s" format string) with timezone converted tm structure, and it will be wrong unless you set  the same time zone with your machine.

down

chris at ocproducts dot com ¶

7 months ago


Displaying hours in 12 hour clock...

%I = Cross-platform, padded with leading zero
%-I = Not on Windows, no padding
%#I = Windows only, no padding

Linux and MacOS confirmed to behave the same.

down

chris at ocproducts dot com ¶

7 months ago


Displaying days of month...

%d = Cross-platform, padded with leading zero
%e = Not on Windows, padded with leading space
%-d = Not on Windows, no padding
%#d = Windows only, no padding

Linux and MacOS confirmed to behave the same.

down

dapikk[at]gmail[dot]com ¶

7 years ago


I had a need to subtrackt an older time from current time to get the time between. 
Example: If one has worked from 2009-03-16 11:33:54 to 2009-03-16 12:01:54 then he has worked X hours,minutes and seconds. I tried to find that X. And so - one solution would be:
<?php
$start_date = strtotime("2009-03-16 11:33:54"); //start date from database - date("Y-m-d H:i:s") made as UNIX timestamp
$end_date = strtotime("2009-03-16 12:01:54"); //end date from database - date("Y-m-d H:i:s") made as UNIX timestamp
$ajavahe = $end_date - $start_date;
$time_between = gmstrftime('%Hh %Mm %Ss', $ajavahe); //gmstrftime() deals with different timezones correctly. (If in example you would be situated in Estonia and you would use strftime() you get wrong answer off by 2 hrs, because timezone is GMT+2 - with gmstrftime() comes right answer.)

echo 'You have worked: '.$time_between;
?>
Hope that this one makes someones life easier :D

down

nielsvan den berge at hotmail dot com ¶

9 years ago


A small function to get the first weekday of the month.
For example the first monday of the month, or the first friday, etc.

<?php  
  /**
   *
   *  Gets the first weekday of that month and year
   *
   *  @param  int   The day of the week (0 = sunday, 1 = monday ... , 6 = saturday)
   *  @param  int   The month (if false use the current month)
   *  @param  int   The year (if false use the current year)
   *
   *  @return int   The timestamp of the first day of that month
   *
   **/  
  function get_first_day($day_number=1, $month=false, $year=false)
  {
    $month  = ($month === false) ? strftime("%m"): $month;
    $year   = ($year === false) ? strftime("%Y"): $year;
    
    $first_day = 1 + ((7+$day_number - strftime("%w", mktime(0,0,0,$month, 1, $year)))%7);
  
    return mktime(0,0,0,$month, $first_day, $year);
  }

// this will output the first wednesday of january 2007 (wed 03-01-2007)
echo strftime("%a %d-%m-%Y", get_first_day(3, 1, 2007)); 
?>

down

dosergio at gmail dot com ¶

2 months ago


/*
     Date localized. (date + lo) = datelo
     @param $str = date string format
     @param optional $locale = desired locale, depends on presence in system. Defaults to en_US
     @param optional $time = If needs a specific time, and not current.

     @returns localized translation.

     usage example:  datelo( 'd-M-Y', 'pt_BR') internally changes to '%e-%b-%G' and returns "4-Dez-2016"  (Dezembro is Portuguese word)

    NOTE: Flags prohibited in this version:  "z" and "n", will cause to return the 'date' function version, with no translation! 
 */

function datelo( $str, $locale='en_US', $time=null){

  if( $time === null){  $time = time(); }
   
  if ( preg_match("/[DlFM]/", $str) && ! preg_match("/[nz]/",  $str)){
    setlocale(LC_ALL, $locale);
    $dict = array();
    $dict['d'] = '%d';
    $dict['D'] = '%a';
    $dict['j'] = '%e';
    $dict['l'] = '%A';
    $dict['N'] = '%u';
    $dict['w'] = '%w';
    $dict['F'] = '%B';
    $dict['m'] = '%m';
    $dict['M'] = '%b';
    $dict['Y'] = '%G';
    $dict['g'] = '%l';
    $dict['G'] = '%k';
    $dict['h'] = '%I';
    $dict['H'] = '%H';
    $dict['i'] = '%M';
    $dict['s'] = '%S';
    $dict['S'] = ' '; //removes English sufixes th rd etc.
    $dict[' '] = ' ';
    $dict['-'] = '-';
    $dict['/'] = '/';
    $dict[':'] = ':';
    $dict[','] = ',';

    $chars = preg_split("//", $str);
    $nstr = '';

    foreach ($chars as $c){
      if ($c){ //skip empties
         $nstr .= $dict[$c];
      }
    }

    return strftime( $nstr);     

  }else{ // not localized

    return date( $str, $time);

  } 
}

down

Michael Z. ¶

7 years ago


This is so simple it has to be found in one of all the comments on all those different time functions. But since I didn't find it, here it is: Use this to convert between different time formats:

<?PHP
if (!function_exists('convertTime')) {
  /** Converts time strings from one format into another using
   *  PHP formats.
   *
   *  @param String $dformat Format to convert to
   *  @param String $sformat Format to convert from, e.g. format
   *      of $ts
   *  @param String $ts Time string to be converted
   *  @return String Supplied time translated to the format specified
   *    in $dformat
   */
  function convertTime($dformat,$sformat,$ts) {
    extract(strptime($ts,$sformat));
    return strftime($dformat,mktime(
                                  intval($tm_hour),
                                  intval($tm_min),
                                  intval($tm_sec),
                                  intval($tm_mon)+1,
                                  intval($tm_mday),
                                  intval($tm_year)+1900
                                ));
  }
}

/*
 * And for the test....
 */
echo convertTime('%Y-%m-%d','%d.%m.%Y','27.11.2009');
?>

This should print "2009-27-11".

I did not put much effort in this code. The task also seems "too simple to be neccessary". But as I said, I didn't find anything to help me with this.

Cheers,

Michael Z

down

khaled dot ataia at gmail dot com ¶

8 years ago


for Arabic



<?php

setlocale(LC_ALL,'ar');

echo strftime('%A %d %B %Y');

?>

down

jerome dot place at free dot fr ¶

9 years ago


Here is a function to convert dates before 1970, very useful if you are still using php 4 (it is supported in php5) :



<?php

# convert a date to special format

# $date is like 2000-01-01 00:00:00 

# $format : refer to strftime function

function convert_date($date,$format) {    

    if($date=='0000-00-00 00:00:00' OR $date=='0000-00-00' OR $date=='' OR $date==NULL) {

        return '';

    }

    else {

        $year=substr($date,0,4);

        if(phpversion() < 5.0 AND $year < 1970) {

            

            $new_date=substr_replace($date,'1980',0,4); # we replace the year by a year after 1970        

            $new_format=eregi_replace('%a|%A|%u','',$format); # we remove days information from the format because they would be wrong

            $new_date=strftime($new_format,strtotime($new_date)); # we convert the date

            $new_date=eregi_replace('1980',$year,$new_date); # we put back the real year

            return $new_date;

        }

        else {

            return strftime($format,strtotime($date));

        }

    }

}

?>

down

-1

jjarsater at gmail dot com ¶

7 years ago


<?php
// Date string
$timestamp     =     strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Y");

// From this string ($timestamp) can we print
echo strftime("%a %d %b %H:%M:%S %Y", strtotime($timestamp))."<br/>";
echo strftime("%a %d %b %H:%M", strtotime($timestamp))."<br/>";
echo strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", strtotime($timestamp))."<br/>";
echo strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M", strtotime($timestamp))."<br/>";
echo strftime("%Y-%m-%d", strtotime($timestamp))."<br/>";
echo strftime("%a %d %b %Y", strtotime($timestamp))."<br/>";

/*And it will output

Wed 20 May 15:53:40 2009
Wed 20 May 15:53
2009-05-20 15:53:40
2009-05-20 15:53
2009-05-20
Wed 20 May 2009

*/
?>

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strftime

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