How to convert php string to date

PHP is a widely used programming language and it is widely used for web development. In PHP, date is a common data type because many web applications need to involve dates and times. PHP provides built-in date and time functions that can convert a date represented by a string into a date object. In this article, we will learn how to convert PHP string to date.

Convert a string to a date using PHP built-in functions

PHP provides built-in date and time functions, some of which can convert a date represented by a string into a date object. Here are some examples of these functions:

strtotime()

The strtotime() function accepts a string representing a date and time and converts it to Unix timestamp format. Its basic syntax is as follows:

strtotime(string $time, [int $now])

$time The parameter is a string representing the date and time, which can be in multiple formats, such as: YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS or MM/DD/YYYY etc.
$now The optional parameter represents the Unix timestamp of the current time.
The following is a sample code that uses strtotime() to convert from a string to a date:

$dateString = '2020-05-31 15:45:00';
$date = strtotime($dateString);
echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $date); // 输出：2020-05-31 15:45:00

In the above code, we first define a $dateString string, which Represents 2020-05-31 15:45:00, and then passes it as a parameter to the strtotime() function. This function returns a Unix timestamp, so we can use the date() function to format it into a date and time string.

DateTime::createFromFormat()

The DateTime::createFromFormat() method creates a new DateTime object from a formatted string. Its basic syntax is as follows:

DateTime::createFromFormat(string $format, string $time, [DateTimeZone $timezone])

$format The parameter is a format string describing the format of the $time parameter.
$time The parameters are strings representing date and time.
$timezone The parameter is the time zone, optional. (Defaults to the server's time zone).

The following is a sample code using DateTime::createFromFormat() to convert from a string to a date:

$dateString = '2020-05-31 15:45:00';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', $dateString);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s'); // 输出：2020-05-31 15:45:00

In the above code, we first define a $dateString A string that represents 2020-05-31 15:45:00, which is then passed as a parameter to the DateTime::createFromFormat() method. This method returns a DateTime object and we use the format() method to format the date and time string.

Use third-party libraries to convert strings to dates

In addition to using PHP built-in functions, there are many third-party libraries that can help us convert strings to dates. Here are some popular PHP date parsing libraries:

• Carbon
• Noodlehaus\Time
• JDateTime

Here we will Introduces how to use the Carbon library to convert strings to dates. Carbon is a popular date processing library that provides many easy-to-use methods. The following is a sample code to convert from a string to a date using the Carbon library:

use Carbon\Carbon;

$dateString = '2020-05-31 15:45:00';
$date = Carbon::parse($dateString);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s'); // 输出：2020-05-31 15:45:00

In the above code, we first imported the Carbon library and defined a $dateString string , and then use the Carbon::parse() method to convert it to a Carbon object. Finally, we use the format() method to format the date and time into a string.

Conclusion

Converting a string to a date is a common task in PHP, especially in web applications. This article explains how to convert a string into a date object using PHP's built-in functions and third-party libraries. No matter which method you choose, these functions and libraries can help you convert strings to dates and provide easy-to-use and flexible ways to format date objects.

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