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

22 Chapter 1 PHP Crash Course
Figure 1.3
PHP’s date() function returns a formatted date string.
Calling Functions
Look at the call to date().This is the general form that function calls take. PHP has an
extensive library of functions you can use when developing web applications. Most of
these functions need to have some data passed to them and return some data.
Now look at the function call again:
date(‘H:i, jS F’)
Notice that it passes a string (text data) to the function inside a pair of parentheses.The
element within the parentheses is called the function’s argument or parameter. Such arguments
are the input the function uses to output some specific results.
Using the date() Function
The date() function expects the argument you pass it to be a format string, representing
the style of output you would like. Each letter in the string represents one part of
the date and time. H is the hour in a 24-hour format with leading zeros where required,
i is the minutes with a leading zero where required, j is the day of the month without a
leading zero, S represents the ordinal suffix (in this case th), and F is the full name of the
month.