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Using Date and Time Functions in PHP

The sections that follow introduce you to the date- and time-related functions specifically in PHP. Try out each listing for yourself, to see how simple and powerful these functions can be.

Getting the Date with time()

PHP's time() function gives you all the information that you need about the current date and time. It requires no arguments and returns an integer. For us humans, the returned number is a little hard on the eyes, but it's extremely useful nonetheless.

echo time();
// sample output: 1060751270
//this represents August 12th, 2003 at 10:07PM

The integer returned by time() represents the number of seconds elapsed since midnight GMT on January 1, 1970. This moment is known as the Unix epoch, and ...