PHP DateTime Class

Many functions exist in PHP to print the date and time values in different ways. PHP DateTime class is used to represent the date and time in an object-oriented way. The date and time values can be created, parsed, or printed by creating the object of this class. This class has many methods to do the different types of tasks with date and time values. The different ways of using the DateTime class to generate the date or time and print the formatted date or time values are shown in this tutorial.

Some Useful Methods of DateTime Class

Different Examples of DateTime Class

The different uses of the DateTime class are shown in this part of the tutorial using multiple examples.

Example 1: Read the Current Date and Time

Create a PHP file with the following script that prints the formatted date and time values. The object of the DateTime class is created here without using the constructor parameter to read the current date and time values. Next, the format() function is used to print the current date and time in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 2: Read the Particular Date and Time

Create a PHP file with the following script that prints the particular date and time values with the formatting. The object of the DateTime class is created here with a constructor parameter to print the particular date and time values. Next, the format() method is used to print the date and time in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 3: Read the Date and Time in a Readable Format

Create a PHP file with the following script that reads the date value based on the English-like string value and print the particular date value with the formatting. Next, the format() method is used to print the date in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 4: Create Date Using CreateFromFormat()

Create a PHP file with the following script that generates a date using the createFromFormat() method of the DateTime class. Next, the format() method is used to print the date in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 5: Modify the Current Date by Adding Days, Months, and Years

Create a PHP file with the following script that generates a date after adding 10 days, 1 month, and 2 years using the modify() method of the DateTime class. Next, the format() method is used to print the date in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 6: Modify the Current Date by Subtracting Days, Months, and Years

Create a PHP file with the following script that generates a date after subtracting 5 days, 6 months, and 1 year using the modify() method of the DateTime class. Next, the format() method is used to print the date in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 7: Add Days, Months, and Years with the Current Date

Create a PHP file with the following script that generates a date after adding 5 days, 1 month, and 3 years by creating the object of DateInterval class and the add() method of this class. Next, the format() method is used to print the date in the particular format.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Example 8: Read the Date with the Exception Handling

Create a PHP file with the following script that prints the particular date value that is taken from the URL parameter with the formatting. The try-catch block is used in the script to display the error message for the wrong date value.

Output:

The following output appears after executing the previous script:

Conclusion

The DateTime class of the PHP is used to generate the date and time in multiple ways. Some commonly used methods of this class are explained in this tutorial using simple examples.