strtotime

PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8
strtotime - Parse about any English textual datetime description into a Unix timestamp

strtotime( string$datetime, [int|null$baseTimestamp = null] ): int|false

The function expects to be given a string containing an English date format and will try to parse that format into a Unix timestamp (the number of seconds since January 1 1970 00:00:00 UTC), relative to the timestamp given in baseTimestamp, or the current time if baseTimestamp is not supplied.

Warning:

The Unix timestamp that this function returns does not contain information about time zones. In order to do calculations with date/time information, you should use the more capable DateTimeImmutable.

Each parameter of this function uses the default time zone unless a time zone is specified in that parameter. Be careful not to use different time zones in each parameter unless that is intended. See date_default_timezone_get on the various ways to define the default time zone.

Parameters

datetime

A date/time string. Valid formats are explained in Date and Time Formats.

baseTimestamp

The timestamp which is used as a base for the calculation of relative dates.

Return Values

Returns a timestamp on success, false otherwise.

Exceptions and Errors

Every call to a date/time function will generate a E_WARNING if the time zone is not valid. See also date_default_timezone_set

Notes

Note:

If the number of the year is specified in a two digit format, the values between 00-69 are mapped to 2000-2069 and 70-99 to 1970-1999. See the notes below for possible differences on 32bit systems (possible dates might end on 2038-01-19 03:14:07).

Note:

The valid range of a timestamp is typically from Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 UTC to Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 UTC. (These are the dates that correspond to the minimum and maximum values for a 32-bit signed integer.)

For 64-bit versions of PHP, the valid range of a timestamp is effectively infinite, as 64 bits can represent approximately 293 billion years in either direction.

Note:

Dates in the m/d/y or d-m-y formats are disambiguated by looking at the separator between the various components: if the separator is a slash (/), then the American m/d/y is assumed; whereas if the separator is a dash (-) or a dot (.), then the European d-m-y format is assumed. If, however, the year is given in a two digit format and the separator is a dash (-), the date string is parsed as y-m-d.

To avoid potential ambiguity, it's best to use ISO 8601 (YYYY-MM-DD) dates or DateTime::createFromFormat when possible.

Note:

Using this function for mathematical operations is not advisable. It is better to use DateTime::add and DateTime::sub.

Changelog

Version Description
8.0.0 baseTimestamp is nullable now.

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Function strtotime:

Date and Time Functions

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