Combining Date Functions in PHP

Working with Time

The date() function can also produce time-related values. Let’s run through a few examples, starting with simply outputting the present time:  

echo "The time is ".date("h:i:s");
// The time is 07:44:53

But is it morning or evening? Just add theaparameter:

echo "The time is ".date("h:i:sa");
// The time is 07:44:53pm

getdate()

array getdate ([int timestamp])

Thegetdate()function returns an associative array consisting of timestamp components. This function returns these components based on the present date and time unless a Unix-format timestamp is provided. In total, 11 array elements are returned, including:

1. hours: Numeric representation of the hours. The range is 0 through 23.
   
2. mday: Numeric representation of the day of the month. The range is 1 through 31. 
    
3. minutes: Numeric representation of the minutes. The range is 0 through 59. 
    
4. mon: Numeric representation of the month. The range is 1 through 12. 
    
5. month: Complete text representation of the month, e.g. July. 
    
6. seconds: Numeric representation of seconds. The range is 0 through 59. 
    
7. wday: Numeric representation of the day of the week, e.g. 0 for Sunday. 
    
8. weekday: Complete text representation of the day of the week, e.g. Friday. 
    
9. yday: Numeric offset of the day of the year. The range is 0 through 365. 
    
10. year: Four-digit numeric representation of the year, e.g. 2005. 
     
11. 0: Number of seconds since the Unix epoch. While the range is system-dependent, on Unix-based systems, it’s generally –2147483648 through 2147483647, and on Windows, the range is 0 through 2147483648.  

Caution  The Windows operating system doesn’t support negative timestamp values, so the earliest date you could parse with this function on Windows is midnight, January 1, 1970.

Consider the timestamp 1114284300 (April 23, 2005 15:25:00 EDT). Let’s pass it togetdate()and review the array elements:

Array (
 [seconds] => 0
 [minutes] => 25
 [hours] => 15
 [mday] => 23
 [wday] => 6
 [mon] => 4
 [year] => 2005
 [yday] => 112
 [weekday] => Saturday
 [month] => April
 [0] => 1114284300
)

gettimeofday()

mixed gettimeofday ([bool return_float])

Thegettimeofday()function returns an associative array consisting of elements regarding the current time. For those running PHP 5.1.0 and newer, the optional parameterreturn_floatcausesgettimeofday()to return the current time as a float value. In total, four elements are returned, including:

1. dsttime: Indicates the daylight savings time algorithm used, which varies according to geographic location. There are 11 possible values, including 0 (no daylight savings time enforced), 1 (United States), 2 (Australia), 3 (Western Europe), 4 (Middle Europe), 5 (Eastern Europe), 6 (Canada), 7 (Great Britain and Ireland), 8 (Romania), 9 (Turkey), and 10 (the Australian 1986 variation). 
    
2. minuteswest: The number of minutes west of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). 
    
3. sec: The number of seconds since the Unix epoch. 
    
4. usec: The number of microseconds should the time fractionally supercede a whole second value.

Executinggettimeofday()from a test server on April 23, 2005 16:24:55 EDT produces the following output:

--------------------------------------------Array (
  [sec] => 1114287896
  [usec] => 110683
  [minuteswest] => 300
  [dsttime] => 1
)
--------------------------------------------

Of course, it’s possible to assign the output to an array and then reference each element as necessary:

$time = gettimeofday();
$GMToffset = $time['minuteswest'] / 60;
echo "Server location is $GMToffset hours west of GMT.";

This returns the following:

Server location is 5 hours west of GMT.

mktime()

int mktime ([int hour [, int minute [, int second [, int month
            [, int day [, int year [, int is_dst]]]]]]])

Themktime()function is useful for producing a timestamp, in seconds, between the Unix epoch and a given date and time. The purpose of each optional parameter should be obvious, save for perhapsis_dst, which should be set to 1 if daylight savings time is in effect, 0 if not, or –1 (default) if you’re not sure. The default value prompts PHP to try to determine whether daylight savings is in effect. For example, if you want to know the timestamp for April 27, 2005 8:50 p.m., all you have to do is plug in the appropriate values:

echo mktime(20,50,00,4,27,2005);

This returns the following:

1114649400

This is particularly useful for calculating the difference between two points in time. For instance, how many hours are there between now and midnight April 15, 2006 (the next major U.S. tax day)?

$now = mktime();
$taxday = mktime(0,0,0,4,15,2006);

// Difference in seconds
$difference = $taxday - $now;

// Calculate total hours
$hours = round($difference / 60 / 60);

echo "Only $hours hours until tax day!";

This returns the following:

--------------------------------------------Only 8451 hours until tax day!
--------------------------------------------

time()

int time()

Thetime()function is useful for retrieving the present Unix timestamp. The following example was executed at 15:25:00 EDT on April 23, 2005:

echo time();

This produces the following:

1114284300

Using the previously introduceddate()function, this timestamp can later be converted back to a human-readable date:

echo date("F d, Y h:i:s", 1114284300);

This returns the following:

April 23, 2005 03:25:00

If you’d like to convert a specific date/time value to its corresponding timestamp, see the previous section formktime().

Next: Date Fu >>
 

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