Supported Date and Time Formats

Time Formats

This page describes the different date/time formats in a BNF-like syntax, that the DateTimeImmutable, DateTime, date_create(), date_create_immutable(), and strtotime() parser understands.

To format DateTimeImmutable and DateTime objects, please refer to the documentation of the DateTimeInterface::format() method.

Date Formats

This page describes the different date formats in a BNF-like syntax, that the DateTimeImmutable, DateTime, date_create(), date_create_immutable(), and strtotime() parser understands.

To format DateTimeImmutable and DateTime objects, please refer to the documentation of the DateTimeInterface::format() method.

Nota:

For the y and yy formats, years below 100 are handled in a special way when the y or yy symbol is used. If the year falls in the range 0 (inclusive) to 69 (inclusive), 2000 is added. If the year falls in the range 70 (inclusive) to 99 (inclusive) then 1900 is added. This means that "00-01-01" is interpreted as "2000-01-01".

Nota:

The "Day, month and two digit year, with dots or tabs" format (dd [.\t] mm "." yy) only works for the year values 61 (inclusive) to 99 (inclusive) - outside those years the time format "HH [.:] MM [.:] SS" has precedence.

Nota:

The "Year (and just the year)" format only reliably works if a time string has already been found. Otherwise, if the four digit year matches HH MM then these two date elements are set instead.

To consistently parse just a year, use DateTimeImmutable::createFromFormat() with the Y specifier.

Compound Formats

This page describes the different compound date/time formats in a BNF-like syntax, that the DateTimeImmutable, DateTime, date_create(), date_create_immutable(), and strtotime() parser understands.

To format DateTimeImmutable and DateTime objects, please refer to the documentation of the DateTimeInterface::format() method.

Nota:

The "W" in the "ISO year with ISO week" and "ISO year with ISO week and day" formats is case-sensitive, you can only use the upper case "W".

The "T" in the SOAP, XMLRPC and WDDX formats is case-sensitive, you can only use the upper case "T".

The "Unix Timestamp" format sets the timezone to UTC.

Relative Formats

This page describes the different relative date/time formats in a BNF-like syntax, that the DateTimeImmutable, DateTime, date_create(), date_create_immutable(), and strtotime() parser understands.

To format DateTimeImmutable and DateTime objects, please refer to the documentation of the DateTimeInterface::format() method.

Nota:

Relative statements are always processed after non-relative statements. This makes "+1 week july 2008" and "july 2008 +1 week" equivalent.

Exceptions to this rule are: "yesterday", "midnight", "today", "noon" and "tomorrow". Note that "tomorrow 11:00" and "11:00 tomorrow" are different. Considering today's date of "July 23rd, 2008" the first one produces "2008-07-24 11:00" where as the second one produces "2008-07-24 00:00". The reason for this is that those five statements directly influence the current time.

Keywords such as "first day of" depend on the context in which the relative format string is used. If used with a static method or function, the referent is the current system timestamp. However, if used in DateTime::modify() or DateTimeImmutable::modify(), the referent is the object on which the modify() method is called.

Nota:

Observe the following remarks when the current day-of-week is the same as the day-of-week used in the date/time string. The current day-of-week could have been (re-)calculated by non-relative parts of the date/time string however.

1. "dayname" does not advance to another day. (Example: "Wed July 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-23").
2. "number dayname" does not advance to another day. (Example: "1 wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-23").
3. "number week dayname" will first add the number of weeks, but does not advance to another day. In this case "number week" and "dayname" are two distinct blocks. (Example: "+1 week wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-30").
4. "ordinal dayname" does advance to another day. (Example "first wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-30").
5. "number week ordinal dayname" will first add the number of weeks, and then advances to another day. In this case "number week" and "ordinal dayname" are two distinct blocks. (Example: "+1 week first wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-08-06").
6. "ordinal dayname 'of' " does not advance to another day. (Example: "first wednesday of july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-02" because the specific phrase with 'of' resets the day-of-month to '1' and the '23rd' is ignored here).

Also observe that the "of" in "ordinal space dayname space 'of' " and "'last' space dayname space 'of' " does something special.

1. It sets the day-of-month to 1.
2. "ordinal dayname 'of' " does not advance to another day. (Example: "first tuesday of july 2008" means "2008-07-01").
3. "ordinal dayname " does advance to another day. (Example: "first tuesday july 2008" means "2008-07-08", see also point 4 in the list above).
4. "'last' dayname 'of' " takes the last dayname of the current month. (Example: "last wed of july 2008" means "2008-07-30")
5. "'last' dayname" takes the last dayname from the current day. (Example: "last wed july 2008" means "2008-06-25"; "july 2008" first sets the current date to "2008-07-01" and then "last wed" moves to the previous Wednesday which is "2008-06-25").

Nota:

Relative month values are calculated based on the length of months that they pass through. An example would be "+2 month 2011-11-30", which would produce "2012-01-30". This is due to November being 30 days in length, and December being 31 days in length, producing a total of 61 days.

Nota:

number is an integer number; if a decimal number is given, the dot (or comma) is likely interpreted as delimiter. For instance, '+1.5 hours' is parsed like '+1 5 hours', not as '+1 hour +30 minutes'.