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What is the date() function in PHP?
The date() function in PHP is an inbuilt function that returns a formatted timestamp that can easily be understood.
This function is supported by PHP versions 4 and later.
Parameters
The date() method accepts two parameters:
format: This parameter indicates the format you want to display the date.
A list of acceptable formats can be found here.
timestamp: This argument is the Unix timestamp of reference. If no value is provided, the current local time will be used instead.
Return value
The date() function returns a formatted date string. If the value used for the timestamp parameter is not numeric, false is returned, and the E_WARNING error is raised.
Code
The code below shows how to use the date() function.
<?php// setting the default timezone to use.date_default_timezone_set('UTC');//prints the current date and timeecho date('m-d-Y h:i:s:A')."\n";// Prints something like: Wednesdayecho date("l") ."\n";// Prints something like: Wednesday 10th of November 2021 03:12:46 AMecho date('l jS \of F Y h:i:s A') ."\n";// Prints: July 1, 2000 is on a Saturdayecho "July 1, 2000 is on a " . date("l", mktime(0, 0, 0, 7, 1, 2000))."\n";?>
The date() function returns formatted date strings in the code above depending on the specified format.
The mktime() function used in line provides a pool of integers which the date() function can use to make a time string.
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