How to convert date to timestamp in PHP?

Question

How do I get timestamp from e.g. 22-09-2008?

Answer 1

Here is a very simple and effective solution using the split and mtime functions:

$date="30/07/2010 13:24"; //Date example
list($day, $month, $year, $hour, $minute) = split('[/ :]', $date); 

//The variables should be arranged according to your date format and so the separators
$timestamp = mktime($hour, $minute, 0, $month, $day, $year);
echo date("r", $timestamp);

It worked like a charm for me.

Answer 2

function date_to_stamp( $date, $slash_time = true, $timezone = 'Europe/London', $expression = "#^\d{2}([^\d]*)\d{2}([^\d]*)\d{4}$#is" ) {
    $return = false;
    $_timezone = date_default_timezone_get();
    date_default_timezone_set( $timezone );
    if( preg_match( $expression, $date, $matches ) )
        $return = date( "Y-m-d " . ( $slash_time ? '00:00:00' : "h:i:s" ), strtotime( str_replace( array($matches[1], $matches[2]), '-', $date ) . ' ' . date("h:i:s") ) );
    date_default_timezone_set( $_timezone );
    return $return;
}

// expression may need changing in relation to timezone
echo date_to_stamp('19/03/1986', false) . '<br />';
echo date_to_stamp('19**03**1986', false) . '<br />';
echo date_to_stamp('19.03.1986') . '<br />';
echo date_to_stamp('19.03.1986', false, 'Asia/Aden') . '<br />';
echo date('Y-m-d h:i:s') . '<br />';

//1986-03-19 02:37:30
//1986-03-19 02:37:30
//1986-03-19 00:00:00
//1986-03-19 05:37:30
//2012-02-12 02:37:30

Answer 3

$time = '22-09-2008';
echo strtotime($time);

Answer 4

With DateTime API:

$dateTime = new DateTime('2008-09-22'); 
echo $dateTime->format('U'); 

// or 

$date = new DateTime('2008-09-22');
echo $date->getTimestamp();

The same with the procedural API:

$date = date_create('2008-09-22');
echo date_format($date, 'U');

// or

$date = date_create('2008-09-22');
echo date_timestamp_get($date);

If the above fails because you are using a unsupported format, you can use

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('!d-m-Y', '22-09-2008');
echo $dateTime->format('U'); 

// or

$date = date_parse_from_format('!d-m-Y', '22-09-2008');
echo date_format($date, 'U');

Note that if you do not set the !, the time portion will be set to current time, which is different from the first four which will use midnight when you omit the time.

Yet another alternative is to use the IntlDateFormatter API:

$formatter = new IntlDateFormatter(
    'en_US',
    IntlDateFormatter::FULL,
    IntlDateFormatter::FULL,
    'GMT',
    IntlDateFormatter::GREGORIAN,
    'dd-MM-yyyy'
);
echo $formatter->parse('22-09-2008');

Unless you are working with localized date strings, the easier choice is likely DateTime.

Answer 5

There is also strptime() which expects exactly one format:

$a = strptime('22-09-2008', '%d-%m-%Y');
$timestamp = mktime(0, 0, 0, $a['tm_mon']+1, $a['tm_mday'], $a['tm_year']+1900);

Answer 6

<?php echo date('U') ?>

If you want, put it in a MySQL input type timestamp. The above works very well (only in PHP 5 or later):

<?php $timestamp_for_mysql = date('c') ?>