The way that Unix machines tell the time is by counting the number of seconds
that have elapsed since Midnight 1 January 1970. They call this the Unix Epoch.
So if we had a piece of PHP that looked something like this:
This just happens to be about 12h43 on Sunday 21 May 2000.
This is all well and good you may say, but how does that help me ?
Well quite a bit actually. A lot of the functions that do date manipulation in
PHP require the timestamp that is returned by the time() function as one of the
inputs. Also, since PHP uses the timestamp in the same way under both Unix and
Windows, it allows you to use code on either operating system without any
problems. A further bonus is that since the time() function is returning an
integer, you can store it as such in a database or text file - no more need for
fancy date/time database fields.
OK, so now that you have the how and why about Unix timestamps, let's get on to
the really important bits and start using it for something useful.
| Comments: |
| RE: day addtion and substration | Rasika Somathilaka | 10/20/08 02:28 |
| Daylight save time | Venoel | 10/26/07 06:54 |
| RE: datediff | mamun | 10/10/07 23:23 |
| RE: Add 7 days to an existing date | jprakash | 09/18/07 02:08 |
| RE: Inserting dates into mysql | Hussain | 07/19/07 01:31 |
| Inserting dates into mysql | Tams | 07/12/07 14:55 |
| Comparing dates in Unix stamp | Nour B | 05/13/07 07:59 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | TheButler | 02/14/06 11:46 |
| Function to convert dates to and from Mysql | Chris McKee | 10/21/05 00:02 |
| RE: Add seconds. | BrianD | 07/01/05 20:20 |
| datediff | kiwami | 06/09/05 02:49 |
| RE: start date and end date of the week | arup kumar mitra | 04/14/05 09:23 |
| Add 7 days to an existing date | Rika | 04/13/05 07:47 |
| Day from a date in the past | Jacob | 04/07/05 06:07 |
| Inserting todays date into a table | Mike G | 03/29/05 10:05 |
| add time | sanera | 03/21/05 03:21 |
| date and time in php | Mike | 03/17/05 00:35 |
| Add seconds. | Shawn | 01/24/05 15:29 |
| Date serching | Cyril | 01/13/05 06:12 |
| HELP...im really struggling to.... | Raj Patel | 12/28/04 19:55 |
| Should not work properly | Lluis | 12/15/04 04:32 |
| help ........ php | pree | 11/17/04 04:05 |
| SOLUTION - MYSQL TO PHP DATE STAMP | Paul | 10/24/04 18:45 |
| mistake in dateAdd function | drew | 09/13/04 23:00 |
| RE: date diff & leap years | Ahad ali | 09/13/04 04:21 |
| Find the start and end dates of a month | Kumar | 05/05/04 08:24 |
| RE: start date and end date of the week | Kumar | 05/03/04 07:55 |
| RE: start date and end date of the week | Sunny | 03/07/04 01:42 |
| SOLUTION: MYSQL -> PHP | Karl Messner | 12/17/03 22:38 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | madjack | 08/08/03 19:35 |
| Updated Quarter Code | Ian | 05/19/03 22:50 |
| RE: start date and end date of the week | selidori | 03/17/03 10:58 |
| Get exact Time Difference betn two dates. | Vijay | 02/17/03 05:16 |
| RE: formatting date from a MySQL table | PHP Bob | 12/03/02 00:40 |
| RE: Expanded Date Diff - Years, Quarter, Mont | Allen | 11/25/02 10:51 |
| RE: Trying to input a date from a form text input | mona vaishnav | 11/19/02 01:19 |
| RE: using LIKE with wildcards | joris | 11/17/02 21:22 |
| RE: formatting date from a Ms-SQL table | Fred Shen | 11/11/02 18:11 |
| RE: strtotime doesn't work | Dan | 11/08/02 09:35 |
| DONT NEED THIS, STRTOTIME | Dan | 11/08/02 09:34 |
| good work but..... | Yassine | 11/01/02 04:30 |
| Conversion to readable date | Kevin | 10/31/02 09:10 |
| Expanded Date Diff - Years, Quarter, Month | geoff whittington | 10/17/02 12:42 |
| upload file | liyla | 10/13/02 01:27 |
| Date and time | sathappan | 10/04/02 02:14 |
| solution converting data from mysql to php | Tom s | 09/24/02 09:00 |
| start date and end date of the week | rakesh | 09/22/02 06:19 |
| Epoch conversion | TrueFaith | 09/19/02 03:22 |
| Get all timstamps for a whole day? | Arash | 09/02/02 17:18 |
| How to get date from day of year | Amanda | 09/01/02 07:22 |
| RE: formatting date from a Ms-SQL table | Anitha | 08/28/02 05:44 |
| Thanks a lot! | Goblin | 08/27/02 08:26 |
| RE: date comparison | Anurag | 08/27/02 06:33 |
| Unix Timestamp | Richard Dorsett | 08/23/02 11:06 |
| using LIKE with wildcards | smitam | 08/22/02 01:19 |
| date comparison | smita | 08/21/02 22:13 |
| RE: Date Handling | Kim Gan | 08/06/02 13:20 |
| Display format date fetching date from oracle | Haseeb ur Rehman | 07/23/02 01:51 |
| server side link timer script | rogie | 07/06/02 10:09 |
| RE: datediff process | noshee | 07/02/02 06:31 |
| DateDiff: Dates before 1970 | Seth | 06/19/02 16:16 |
| Bug in DateAdd | Alberto Sylvester | 06/18/02 11:28 |
| need to flag new listings... | Fritz | 06/12/02 20:46 |
| dynamic calendar | rajkavi | 05/30/02 06:19 |
| Cannot redeclare datediff() | dsamsom | 05/29/02 13:35 |
| Restriction of range date | Dewi | 05/23/02 05:35 |
| Thanks You! | Shelagh | 05/09/02 07:24 |
| Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!! | Bob Langdon | 05/05/02 17:31 |
| Format a MySQL timestamp ?? | Michael | 04/24/02 04:31 |
| Many thanks for this article | David Court | 04/19/02 05:19 |
| Great Article | Ryan Schwiebert | 04/16/02 11:27 |
| date of next weekend | Holger | 04/05/02 09:00 |
| Adding these functions to the distribution | Malcolm Davis | 04/04/02 08:38 |
| RE: get Day from any given date | rodney | 04/02/02 08:37 |
| inserting count according to latest date. | diksha | 04/01/02 01:16 |
| get Day from any given date | vipul patel | 03/21/02 11:51 |
| Want to get date and time of subdirectories | Pakiya | 03/20/02 03:11 |
| strtotime doesn't work | Alex | 03/18/02 04:19 |
| RE: Basic university project | mixi de France | 03/03/02 15:32 |
| RE: friendly date scripot | port-est | 02/23/02 15:06 |
| friendly date scripot | e johnstone | 02/18/02 10:55 |
| tree view | yana | 02/18/02 03:53 |
| RE: Trying to input a date from a form text input | jdc44 | 02/17/02 21:04 |
| RE: Trying to input a date from a form text input | jdc44 | 02/17/02 20:51 |
| I am getting a wrong date when using date() | Kishore Kadiyala | 02/16/02 00:49 |
| HELP URGENT !!! Compare date and time | Daven | 01/29/02 06:38 |
| RE: I want time in my page | stewartg | 01/24/02 18:15 |
| Dates and Times with PHP and MySQL | stewartg | 01/24/02 03:09 |
| RE: time zone of visitor | stewartg | 01/24/02 03:05 |
| RE: time zone of visitor | stewartg | 01/24/02 02:40 |
| RE: Trying to input a date from a form text input | stewartg | 01/24/02 02:25 |
| RE: How to add date | stewartg | 01/24/02 02:23 |
| RE: Basic university project | stewartg | 01/24/02 02:16 |
| RE: time spent by a visitor in a page | stewartg | 01/24/02 02:12 |
| RE: epoch seconds | stewartg | 01/24/02 02:01 |
| simple date calculation (days difference) | stewartg | 01/24/02 01:58 |
| RE: I want time in my page | Bob | 01/20/02 10:48 |
| RE: I want time in my page | Deflatarat | 01/18/02 17:51 |
| RE: no of days in month | Deflatarat | 01/18/02 17:46 |
| RE: day addtion and substration | Deflatarat | 01/18/02 17:38 |
| how to put a file into mysql database | Sorin | 01/17/02 11:15 |
| Translate date into other languages! | Copycat | 12/30/01 12:41 |
| Translate date into other languages! | Copycat | 12/30/01 12:31 |
| RE: day addtion and substration | Jim Gantes | 12/16/01 05:15 |
| day addtion and substration | pant | 12/08/01 06:25 |
| formatting date in ODBC | Mike Page | 12/06/01 10:57 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | PackWolf | 12/04/01 20:18 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | Axel Brown | 11/30/01 01:06 |
| Changing Dynamic Date format | ofwofw | 11/29/01 10:23 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | hugo | 11/26/01 13:16 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | Protect | 11/24/01 22:31 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | beca44 | 11/21/01 08:31 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | spiri | 11/13/01 02:25 |
| RE: I want time in my page | Adam | 11/04/01 23:53 |
| RE: Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | Greg | 11/04/01 01:19 |
| Time zone manipulation | Dougal Campbell | 10/31/01 15:06 |
| Converting 2001-1-01 to 1-1-2001 | madjack | 10/31/01 13:11 |
| no of days in month | himanshu | 10/30/01 05:01 |
| RE: User Inserting Date | Alex | 10/14/01 20:11 |
| RE: Date difference | Bjørn Rydén | 10/12/01 06:34 |
| User Inserting Date | Angela | 09/27/01 10:09 |
| Date difference | Rahil Mumtaz | 09/14/01 06:24 |
| process form | atheer | 09/05/01 19:50 |
| I want time in my page | Greenpis | 08/28/01 19:18 |
| RE: bcmath, why needed? | bal | 08/18/01 09:30 |
| I wanna just calculate the age | Edemilson Lima | 08/14/01 15:03 |
| Date variable | Steve | 08/14/01 08:47 |
| how to dateDiff months? | irf | 08/12/01 13:00 |
| RE: formatting date from a MySQL table | Emanweb | 08/12/01 03:21 |
| date diff & leap years | irf | 08/10/01 02:17 |
| This function doesn't work. | Michael Harris | 08/04/01 15:29 |
| RE: time zone of visitor | Benji | 07/31/01 08:23 |
| RE: formatting date from a MySQL table | loudi | 07/12/01 11:52 |
| Trying to input a date from a form text input | Don | 07/11/01 14:10 |
| How to add date | Ramya | 07/11/01 00:51 |
| Doesn't help me | Frank Hilliard | 07/09/01 09:07 |
| why "space" add befor month number | gosling | 07/02/01 21:40 |
| RE: Apostrophe from a form | Diablo7227 | 06/08/01 12:56 |
| formatting date from a MySQL table | php dummy | 06/05/01 16:52 |
| RE: Apostrophe from a form | Leed | 05/25/01 01:48 |
| Apostrophe from a form | Rick Templin | 04/07/01 17:06 |
| I NEED HELP !!!, I'M A MORON ! | HitthaGspt | 03/11/01 21:12 |
| RE: bcmath, why needed? | Nightslave | 03/01/01 01:09 |
| RE: Basic university project | Matt M. | 02/15/01 08:41 |
| Basic university project | Matthew Hanson | 02/08/01 08:24 |
| thanks | Doug Korthof | 02/04/01 18:12 |
| RE: time zone of visitor | Jon Robins | 01/26/01 03:59 |
| RE: time spent by a visitor in a page | kumar | 01/12/01 18:55 |
| time zone of visitor | John Derrickson | 01/03/01 14:34 |
| How do I get time difference in VB or Java Sc | Mahidhar | 12/14/00 08:25 |
| RE: datediff process | Rafay Mohd | 12/11/00 10:34 |
| RE: Remote machine date | Rafay Mohd | 12/08/00 07:44 |
| RE: datediff process | Johannes | 11/29/00 09:48 |
| Remote machine date | R.Sridhar | 11/09/00 12:39 |
| bcmath, why needed? | Paul Slootman | 10/05/00 09:48 |
| epoch seconds | Wendy Roseberry | 09/21/00 18:44 |
| For Nelson :: The first part of a solution | clee.pf.mc | 07/04/00 18:04 |
| Time error | Nelson Acero Fino | 07/04/00 09:04 |
| time diference error | Nelson Acero Fino | 07/01/00 19:23 |
| datediff process | Nelson Acero Fino | 07/01/00 19:22 |
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If you are looking for help, please post on the appropriate forum here. Your questions will be answered much more quickly.
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