(PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7)
gmdate — Format a GMT/UTC date/time
$format
[, int $timestamp = time()
] )Identical to the date() function except that the time returned is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Returns a formatted date string. If a non-numeric value is used for
timestamp, FALSE is returned and an
E_WARNING level error is emitted.
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 5.1.0 | The valid range of a timestamp is typically from Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 GMT to Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 GMT. (These are the dates that correspond to the minimum and maximum values for a 32-bit signed integer). However, before PHP 5.1.0 this range was limited from 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038 on some systems (e.g. Windows). |
| 5.1.1 |
There are useful constants
of standard date/time formats that can be used to specify the
format parameter.
|
Example #1 gmdate() example
When run in Finland (GMT +0200), the first line below prints "Jan 01 1998 00:00:00", while the second prints "Dec 31 1997 22:00:00".
<?php
echo date("M d Y H:i:s", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1998));
echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1998));
?>
For me most of the examples here needed the + or - seconds to set the time zone. I wanted a faster way to get the time zone in seconds. So I created this :
<?php
$h = "3";// Hour for time zone goes here e.g. +7 or -4, just remove the + or -
$hm = $h * 60;
$ms = $hm * 60;
$gmdate = gmdate("m/d/Y g:i:s A", time()-($ms)); // the "-" can be switched to a plus if that's what your time zone is.
echo "Your current time now is : $gmdate . ";
?>
It works. Hope it helps.
For an RFC 1123 (HTTP header date) date, try:
<?php
$rfc_1123_date = gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s T', time());
?>
Wath out for summer time and winter time...
If you want to get the current date and time based on GMT you could use this :
<?php
$timezone = -5; //(GMT -5:00) EST (U.S. & Canada)
echo gmdate("Y/m/j H:i:s", time() + 3600*($timezone+date("I")));
?>
this would gives: 2004/07/8 14:35:19 in summer time
and 2004/07/8 13:35:19 in winter time.
Note that date("I") returns 1 in summer and 0 in winter.
If you have the same application running in different countries, you may have some troubles getting the local time..
In my case, I was having troubles with a clock created with Macromedia Flash... the time shown by the clock was supposed to be set up by the server, passing the timestamp. When I moved the file to another country, I got a wrong time...
You can use the timezone offset ( date("Z") ) to handle this kind of thing...
<?php
$timestamp = time()+date("Z");
echo gmdate("Y/m/d H:i:s",$timestamp);
?>
Gives user the ability to use their timezone preferences.
I had to create this script for a very large community. I first made any posts to the database that would display the date using just time();
Example: mysql_query("INSERT INTO `table` (`datetime`) VALUES ('".time()."')");
Also, for their timezone preference, I had the values as (example):
(Eastern Timezone) -5 hours
(Newfoundland) -3 hours -30 minutes
This information would be saved in the users table.
To display the date and time in their respective timezone preference:
<?php
function datetime($datetime,$zone){
if(date('I')):$datetime+=60*60;endif;
return gmdate('m-d-Y - h:i:sa',strtotime($zone,$datetime));
}
?>
$datetime would be the information pulled from the database from a post for news, forums, etcetera (remember, the inserted table data for the time was using time();)
$zone would be the information pulled from the database from the users timezone preference.
I also used cookies to store their timezone:
$sth=mysql_query("SELECT `datetime` FROM `table` LIMIT 1");
$row=mysql_fetch_assoc($sth);
echo datetime($row['datetime'],$_COOKIE['timezone']);
Remember to set the 'm-d-Y - h:i:sa' to how you wish the time to display. Visit the manual about date().
Do not use the "T" timezone specifier to generate "GMT", as this may return "UTC" or "GMT+0000" or "Z" or something else which depends on the running platform, which would not be RFC1123 compliant.
Use 'D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T' which forces the value of the timezone indicator.
Note that RFC1123 requires the use of ENGLISH day and month abbreviations. They MUST NOT be localized!
An example of the RFC1123 format for full dates is:
Sun, 06 Nov 1994 08:49:37 GMT
Note the presence of the leading 0 (RFC1123 dates have a fixed size, and space padding is prohibited because it causes problems with fixed size handling when such dates are used in HTTP headers that may compress whitespaces.
Some proxies accept also the ISO 8601 format, but this is not documented in HTTP/1.1 specs (RFC2616).
Examples:
<?php
header('Date: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T', time()));
header('Last-Modified: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T', time()));
header('Expires: '.gmdate('D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T', time() + 3600));
?>
or if you prefer double quotes and don't want to bother with double backslashes:
<?php
header("Date: ".gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s", time())." GMT");
header("Last-Modified: ".gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s", time())." GMT");;
header("Expires: ".gmdate("D, d M Y H:i:s", time() + 3600)." GMT");
?>
Here, I wrote a function (from code above) for easy time zone
settings.
Regards.
<?php
function datum($datum=true) {
$sign = "+"; // Whichever direction from GMT to your timezone. + or -
$h = "1"; // offset for time (hours)
$dst = true; // true - use dst ; false - don't
if ($dst==true) {
$daylight_saving = date('I');
if ($daylight_saving){
if ($sign == "-"){ $h=$h-1; }
else { $h=$h+1; }
}
}
$hm = $h * 60;
$ms = $hm * 60;
if ($sign == "-"){ $timestamp = time()-($ms); }
else { $timestamp = time()+($ms); }
$gmdate = gmdate("m.d.Y. g:i A", $timestamp);
if($datum==true) {
return $gmdate;
}
else {
return $timestamp;
}
}
?>
If you set first argument to true, it'll return formated date.
If false, will return $timestamp.
Enjoy!
Here's a nifty little function that returns a random timestamp between two dates.
<?php
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
// Return a random timestamp between two dates (inclusive)
// Example: Tue, 08 Nov 2004 06:47:10 GMT
//
// time - Starting time string
// Valid Examples:
// 10 September 2001
// next Thursday
// last Monday
// now
//
// time2 - Ending time string
function randomTimestamp($time = "" , $time2 = "")
{
if(!$time) $time = strtotime("10 September 2000");
if(!$time2) $time2 = strtotime("24 November 2005");
$timestamp = date(" D, d M Y", rand( settype($time , int) , settype($time2 , int) )); //Must be called once before becoming random, ???
$timestamp = date(" D, d M Y", rand($time , $time2))." ";//Now it's random
$h = rand(1,23);
if(strlen($h) == 1 ) $h = "0$h";
$t = $h.":";
$d = rand(1,29);
if(strlen($d) == 1 ) $d = "0$d";
$t .= $d.":";
$s = rand(0,59);
if(strlen($s) == 1 ) $s = "0$s";
$t .= $s;
$timestamp .= $t." GMT";
return $timestamp;
}
?>
Want to put different International Times in your web?
First create a database including the GMT and the DST (find it f.i. at timeanddate.com). Be careful, because there are several different DST dates and options.
Once you have your function which calculates the GMT hour difference (it can be a decimal!!), sum it to the Unix Time (remember that unix time is GMT, not local: f.i. gmdate("U")===date("U)).
Don't forget to recalculate the GMT difference to seconds before it.
Then format your date using gmdate() (not date()!) and... you've got your International Time!
<?php
$city["Name"] = "Barcelona";
$city["GMT"] = 1.0;
$city["actualDST"] = 1.0; //Because it's summer time
$gmt_diff = $city["GMT"]+$city["actualDST"]; //your functions for getting the hour difference betweer the city and the GMT
$city_time = time()+($gmt_diff*3600); //sum the timestamps
echo gmdate("H:i",$city_time); //echo the formatted date
echo " h. in the beautiful city of ".$city["Name"];
?>
My function for something like this is like so:
<?php
function actual_time($format,$offset,$timestamp){
//Offset is in hours from gmt, including a - sign if applicable.
//So lets turn offset into seconds
$offset = $offset*60*60;
$timestamp = $timestamp + $offset;
//Remember, adding a negative is still subtraction ;)
return gmdate($format,$timestamp);
}
?>
It's always worked fine for me.
I was struggling with how to get my browser to output MY local time using gmdate().
I figured it out and here's what you do (ASSUMING THE SERVER IS ON GMT, If not, just echo a generic gmdate() without timezone setting and calculate the number of hours ahead or behind you are of that time, convert it to seconds and add [for ahead] or subtract [for behind] that value to time() ):
NOTE: these are US times [setlocale(LC_TIME, 'en_US')]
for Central Time (7 hours behind GMT):
gmdate("format", time()-(25200));
For Pacific Time (9 hours behind GMT):
gmdate("format", time()-(32400));
REMEMBER - THE VALUES ABOVE ASSUME THE SERVER IS ON GMT
I used the following gmdate() format:
"l, F jS, Y g:i a"
but you can use what you like ;)
Hope this helps!
It's worth noting the distinction between gmgate() and date() with regards to day light savings time. If your server uses universal time and makes an adjustment by locale for daylight savings time, you will want to use date(). gmdate will display the non-adjuisted time.
If you want to get time in your timezone try this:
<?php
$zone=3600*0 //GMT
$zone=3600*1 //CET
$zone=3600*-5//USA
$date=gmdate("D M Y H:i", time() + $zone);
?>
