Updated date and time of the server by using PHP and Ajax with demo

We have seen how to display current date and time of server in a page. But this gives us the server time when the page is rendered. It does not change or update as long as we are not refreshing the page to get the fresh data from server.

Using Ajax

To display changing clock showing server time is possible by using Ajax where we can display a clock by sending request to server and getting the data without refreshing the page.

There are two files for this demo ( download link at end of this page ) one is the file sending request and receiving data with Ajax.

ajax-server-clock.php
We will fist develop a script where by clicking a button we can send a request to server to get the data. In the body of this file we have a button.

<input type=button value=
'Get Server Time' onclick="timer_function();">

To this script we will add a timer to recursively call the same Ajax function in every second. This will get data from every second so we can display a changing clock showing server time.

function timer_function(){
var refresh=1000; // Refresh rate in milli seconds
mytime=setTimeout('AjaxFunction();',refresh)
}

Timer function: timer_function()

On click of this button we trigger a function which uses a timer setTimeout. Inside this timer function we can change the refresh rate which is in milliseconds. Within this function we call our main Ajax function AjaxFunction().

function timer_function(){
var refresh=1000; // Refresh rate in milli seconds
mytime=setTimeout('AjaxFunction();',refresh)
}

At the end of AjaxFunction() we will call again our timer_function() to make it recursive.

tt=timer_function();

In the main AjaxFunction() we send request to ajax-server-clock-demock.php file and get the server time. This data is displayed using a div layer.

    if(httpxml.readyState==4)
      {
document.getElementById("msg").innerHTML=httpxml.responseText;
document.getElementById("msg").style.background='#f1f1f1';
      }

The second file is the simple PHP file with one line of code giving current date and time of server. ajax-server-clock-demock.php

<?Php
echo date("d/m/y : H:i:s", time());
?>

You can change the display format of the clock by changing the above code.

Using client side JavaScript

To show a changing clock we can use client side JavaScript which display time using local computer. But this is not server date and time.

Server Clock showing date and time using Ajax

Using Ajax

Timer function: timer_function()

Using client side JavaScript