PHP gmdate() function

PHP Date / Time Functions

Example

Format GMT/UTC date and time and return the formatted date string:

<?php
// Output day of the week
echo gmdate("l") . "<br>";
// Output day of the week, day, month, year, time, AM or PM
echo gmdate("l jS \of F Y h:i:s A");
?>

Run Example

Definition and Usage

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

Syntax

gmdate(format,timestamp);
Parameter Description
format

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

  • d - Day of the month (from 01 to 31)
  • D - Text representation of the day of the week (represented by three letters)
  • j - Day of the month without leading zeros (1 to 31)
  • l (lowercase form of 'L') - Full text representation of the day of the week
  • N - ISO-8601 numeric format representation of the day of the week (1 represents Monday[Monday], 7 represents Sunday[Sunday])
  • S - English ordinal suffix of the day of the month (2 characters: st, nd, rd, or th. Used with j)
  • w - Numeric representation of the day of the week (0 represents Sunday[Sunday], 6 represents Saturday[Saturday])
  • z - Day of the year (from 0 to 365)
  • W - Week number in a year represented in ISO-8601 numeric format (starting from Monday[Monday])
  • F - Full text representation of the month (January[January] to December[December])
  • m - Numeric representation of the month (from 01 to 12)
  • M - Short text representation of the month (represented by three letters)
  • n - Numeric representation of the month without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • t - Number of days in the given month
  • L - Whether it is a leap year (1 if it is a leap year, otherwise 0)
  • o - Year number under the ISO-8601 standard
  • Y - Four-digit representation of the year
  • y - Two-digit representation of the year
  • a - Lowercase representation: am or pm
  • A - Uppercase representation: AM or PM
  • B - Swatch Internet Time (000 to 999)
  • g - 12-hour format, without leading zeros (1 to 12)
  • G - 24-hour format, without leading zeros (0 to 23)
  • h - 12-hour format, with leading zeros (01 to 12)
  • H - 24-hour format, with leading zeros (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 - Time zone identifier (for example: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores)
  • I (uppercase form of i) - Whether the date is in daylight saving time (1 if it is, 0 otherwise)
  • O - Difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in hours (for example: +0100)
  • P - Difference from Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), in hours:minutes (added in PHP 5.1.3)
  • T - Abbreviation of the time zone (for example: EST, MDT)
  • Z - Time zone offset in seconds. The offset for time zones west of UTC is negative (-43200 to 50400)
  • c - Date in ISO-8601 standard (for example: 2013-05-05T16:34:42+00:00)
  • r - Date in RFC 2822 format (for example: Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:01:05 +0200)
  • U - The number of seconds elapsed since the Unix epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT)

At the same time, the following predefined constants can also be used (available since PHP 5.1.0):

  • DATE_ATOM - Atom (for example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
  • DATE_COOKIE - HTTP Cookies (for example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_ISO8601 - ISO-8601 (for example: 2013-04-12T15:52:01+0000)
  • DATE_RFC822 - RFC 822 (for example: Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC850 - RFC 850 (for example: Friday, 12-Apr-13 15:52:01 UTC)
  • DATE_RFC1036 - RFC 1036 (e.g., Fri, 12 Apr 13 15:52:01 +0000)
  • DATE_RFC1123 - RFC 1123 (e.g., 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 (e.g., 2013-04-12T15:52:01+00:00)
timestamp Optional. Specifies the Unix timestamp for an integer. The default is the current local time (time()).

Technical Details

Return Value: Returns a formatted date string if successful, or reports an E_WARNING error and returns FALSE if failed.
PHP Version: 4+
Update Log:

PHP 5.1.0: The valid range of timestamps is from December 13, 1901, 20:45:54 GMT Friday to January 19, 2038, 03:14:07 GMT Tuesday. In versions prior to 5.1.0, timestamps are limited to from January 1, 1970 to January 19, 2038 on some systems (such as Windows).

PHP 5.1.1: New standard date/time format constants are added for specification format Parameters.

PHP Date / Time Functions