PHP date format

Date

To get the current date in the format of YYYY-MM-DD using date:

echo date('Y-m-d', strtotime('today')); // 2020-06-26

The same result can be achieved with DateTime:

$date = new DateTime('today');
echo $date->format('Y-m-d'); // 2020-06-26

And the time can also be included:

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s'); // 2020-06-26 01:23:45

Parse

To parse an English textual description of the date, use strtotime or DateTime::format.

Parsing with strtotime:

echo date('Y-m-d', strtotime('yesterday')); // 2020-06-25
echo date('Y-m-d', strtotime('-1 days')); // 2020-06-25

Parsing with DateTime::format:

echo (new DateTime('tomorrow'))->format('Y-m-d'); // 2020-06-27
echo (new DateTime('+1 days'))->format('Y-m-d'); // 2020-06-27

Constants

There are predefined date constants:

DATE_ATOM
DATE_COOKIE
DATE_ISO8601
DATE_RFC822
DATE_RFC850
DATE_RFC1036
DATE_RFC1123
DATE_RFC7231
DATE_RFC2822
DATE_RFC3339
DATE_RFC3339_EXTENDED
DATE_RSS
DATE_W3C

echo date(DATE_ATOM); // 2020-06-26T01:23:45+00:00
echo date(DATE_COOKIE); // Friday, 26-Jun-2020 01:23:45 UTC
echo date(DATE_ISO8601); // 2020-06-26T01:23:45+0000
echo date(DATE_RFC822); // Fri, 26 Jun 20 01:23:45 +0000
echo date(DATE_RFC850); // Friday, 26-Jun-20 01:23:45 UTC
echo date(DATE_RFC1036); // Fri, 26 Jun 20 01:23:45 +0000
echo date(DATE_RFC1123); // Fri, 26 Jun 2020 01:23:45 +0000
echo date(DATE_RFC7231); // Fri, 26 Jun 2020 01:23:45 GMT
echo date(DATE_RFC2822); // Fri, 26 Jun 2020 01:23:45 +0000
echo date(DATE_RFC3339); // 2020-06-26T01:23:45+00:00
echo date(DATE_RFC3339_EXTENDED); // 2020-06-26T01:23:45.000+00:00
echo date(DATE_RSS); // Fri, 26 Jun 2020 01:23:45 +0000
echo date(DATE_W3C); // 2020-06-26T01:23:45+00:00

Here are some examples of using shorthand constants:

echo date('c', strtotime('now')); // ISO8601
echo (new DateTime())->format('r'); // RFC2822

Demo

Check out the following Repl.it: