idate

Description

Returns a number formatted according to the given format string using the given integer timestamp or the current local time if no timestamp is given. In other words, timestamp is optional and defaults to the value of time().

Unlike the function date(), idate() accepts just one char in the format parameter.

Parameters

format

format character	Description
B	Swatch Beat/Internet Time
d	Day of the month
h	Hour (12 hour format)
H	Hour (24 hour format)
i	Minutes
I (uppercase i)	returns 1 if DST is activated, 0 otherwise
L (uppercase l)	returns 1 for leap year, 0 otherwise
m	Month number
N	ISO-8601 day of the week (1 for Monday through 7 for Sunday)
o	ISO-8601 year (4 digits)
s	Seconds
t	Days in current month
U	Seconds since the Unix Epoch - January 1 1970 00:00:00 UTC - this is the same as time()
w	Day of the week (0 on Sunday)
W	ISO-8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday
y	Year (1 or 2 digits - check note below)
Y	Year (4 digits)
z	Day of the year
Z	Timezone offset in seconds

Return Values

Returns an int on success, Falseforfailure.

As idate() always returns an int and as they can't start with a "0", idate() may return fewer digits than you would expect. See the example below.

Errors/Exceptions Description

Changelog

Examples

idate() example

<?php
$timestamp = strtotime('1st January 2004'); // 1072915200

// this prints the year in a two digit format
// however, as this would start with a "0", it
// only prints "4"
echo idate('y', $timestamp) . "\n";

$timestamp = strtotime('1st January 2024'); // 1704067200
echo idate('y', $timestamp);

The above example will output:

4
24

See Also

• DateTimeInterface::format
• date()
• getdate()
• time()