PHP and MySQL Web Development 4th Ed-tqw-_darksiderg

21
Managing the Date and Time
IN THIS CHAPTER, WE DISCUSS CHECKING AND FORMATTING the date and time and converting
between date formats.These capabilities are especially important when you are
converting between MySQL and PHP date formats, Unix and PHP date formats, and
dates entered by the user in an HTML form.
Key topics covered in this chapter include
n Getting the date and time in PHP
n Converting between PHP and MySQL date formats
n Calculating dates
n Using the calendar functions
Getting the Date and Time from PHP
Way back in Chapter 1,“PHP Crash Course,” we described using the date() function
to get and format the date and time from PHP. Here, we discuss this function and some
of PHP’s other date and time functions in a little more detail.
Using the date() Function
As you might recall, the date() function takes two parameters, one of them optional.
The first one is a format string, and the second, optional one is a Unix timestamp. If you
don’t specify a timestamp, date() will default to the current date and time. It returns a
formatted string representing the appropriate date.
A typical call to the date() function could be
echo date(‘jS F Y’);
This call produces a date in the format 19th June 2008.The format codes accepted by
date() are listed in Table 21.1.