DateTimeInterface::format

DateTimeImmutable::format

DateTime::format

date_format

Returns date formatted according to given format

Description

Object-oriented style

public string DateTimeInterface::format(string $format)
public string DateTimeImmutable::format(string $format)
public string DateTime::format(string $format)

Procedural style

string date_format(DateTimeInterface $object, string $format)

Returns date formatted according to given format.

Parameters

object

Procedural style only: A DateTime object returned by date_create

format

The format of the outputted date string. See the formatting options below. There are also several predefined date constants that may be used instead, so for example DATE_RSS contains the format string 'D, d M Y H:i:s'.

The following characters are recognized in the format parameter string
format character Description Example returned values
Day --- ---
d Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros 01 to 31
D A textual representation of a day, three letters Mon through Sun
j Day of the month without leading zeros 1 to 31
l (lowercase 'L') A full textual representation of the day of the week Sunday through Saturday
N ISO 8601 numeric representation of the day of the week 1 (for Monday) through 7 (for Sunday)
S English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters st, nd, rd or th. Works well with j
w Numeric representation of the day of the week 0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday)
z The day of the year (starting from 0) 0 through 365
Week --- ---
W ISO 8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday Example: 42 (the 42nd week in the year)
Month --- ---
F A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March January through December
m Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros 01 through 12
M A short textual representation of a month, three letters Jan through Dec
n Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros 1 through 12
t Number of days in the given month 28 through 31
Year --- ---
L Whether it's a leap year 1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise.
o ISO 8601 week-numbering year. This has the same value as Y, except that if the ISO week number (W) belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. Examples: 1999 or 2003
X An expanded full numeric representation of a year, at least 4 digits, with - for years BCE, and + for years CE. Examples: -0055, +0787, +1999, +10191
x An expanded full numeric representation if required, or a standard full numeral representation if possible (like Y). At least four digits. Years BCE are prefixed with a -. Years beyond (and including) 10000 are prefixed by a +. Examples: -0055, 0787, 1999, +10191
Y A full numeric representation of a year, at least 4 digits, with - for years BCE. Examples: -0055, 0787, 1999, 2003, 10191
y A two digit representation of a year Examples: 99 or 03
Time --- ---
a Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem am or pm
A Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem AM or PM
B Swatch Internet time 000 through 999
g 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros 1 through 12
G 24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros 0 through 23
h 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros 01 through 12
H 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros 00 through 23
i Minutes with leading zeros 00 to 59
s Seconds with leading zeros 00 through 59
u Microseconds. Note that date will always generate 000000 since it takes an int parameter, whereas DateTimeInterface::format does support microseconds if an object of type DateTimeInterface was created with microseconds. Example: 654321
v Milliseconds. Same note applies as for u. Example: 654
Timezone --- ---
e Timezone identifier Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores
I (capital i) Whether or not the date is in daylight saving time 1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0 otherwise.
O Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) without colon between hours and minutes Example: +0200
P Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with colon between hours and minutes Example: +02:00
p The same as P, but returns Z instead of +00:00 (available as of PHP 8.0.0) Examples: Z or +02:00
T Timezone abbreviation, if known; otherwise the GMT offset. Examples: EST, MDT, +05
Z Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive. -43200 through 50400
Full Date/Time --- ---
c ISO 8601 date 2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00
r » RFC 2822/» RFC 5322 formatted date Example: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200
U Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) See also time

Unrecognized characters in the format string will be printed as-is. The Z format will always return 0 when using gmdate.

Note:

Since this function only accepts int timestamps the u format character is only useful when using the date_format function with user based timestamps created with date_create.

Return Values

Returns the formatted date string on success.

Changelog

Version Description
8.2.0 The format characters X and x have been added.
8.0.0 The format character p has been added.

Examples

Example #1 DateTimeInterface::format example

Object-oriented style

<?php
$date = new DateTimeImmutable('2000-01-01');
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
?>

Procedural style

<?php
$date = date_create('2000-01-01');
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d H:i:s');
?>

The above example will output:

2000-01-01 00:00:00

Example #2 More examples

<?php
// set the default timezone to use.
date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

// now
$date = new DateTimeImmutable();

// Prints something like: Wednesday
echo $date->format('l'), "\n";

// Prints something like: Wednesday 19th of October 2022 08:40:48 AM
echo $date->format('l jS \o\f F Y h:i:s A'), "\n";

/* use the constants in the format parameter */
// prints something like: Wed, 19 Oct 2022 08:40:48 +0000
echo $date->format(DateTimeInterface::RFC2822), "\n";
?>

You can prevent a recognized character in the format string from being expanded by escaping it with a preceding backslash. If the character with a backslash is already a special sequence, you may need to also escape the backslash.

Example #3 Escaping characters while formatting

<?php
$date = new DateTimeImmutable();

// prints something like: Wednesday the 19th
echo $date->format('l \t\h\e jS');
?>

To format dates in other languages, IntlDateFormatter::format can be used instead of DateTimeInterface::format.

Notes

This method does not use locales. All output is in English.

See Also

  • IntlDateFormatter::format