Add function to add date and time to date object in PHP

WE will learn how to add date time intervals to a date object. We must understand date interval and date format before using add function to the date object.

PHP version is 5.3 or higher
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Procedural style

$date = date_create('2019-01-05');
date_add($date, date_interval_create_from_date_string('15 days'));
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d'); // Output is 2019-01-20

Object oriented style.

$date1=new DateTime('2019-05-30'); // date object created. 
$new_date=$date1->add(new DateInterval('P1Y3M')); // inerval of 1 year 3 months 
echo $new_date->format('Y-M-d'); // Output is 2020-Aug-30

Let us try to add 5 days to current date.

date_default_timezone_set ("Asia/Kolkata");
$date=new DateTime("now") ;
echo $date->format('d-m-y');
echo "<br>";
$date=$date->add(new DateInterval('P5D'));
echo $date->format('d-m-y ');

The output is here

29-11-23
04-12-23

We will add 1 Year, 3 months , 5 days to current date . We will only change the affected row in above code like this.

$date=$date->add(new DateInterval('P1Y3M5D'));

echo $date->format('m-d-y ');

Let us add hour minute and seconds to this date object.


date_default_timezone_set ("Asia/Kolkata");
$date=new DateTime("now") ;
echo $date->format('d-m-y H:i:s');
echo "<br>";
$date=$date->add(new DateInterval('P1Y3M5DT4H5M12S'));
echo $date->format('m-d-y H:i:s ')";

Output is here ( Refresh this page to see the change in output)

29-11-23 16:38:21
03-06-25 20:43:33

Using DateTimeImmutable object

DateTimeImmutable never modifies itself but returns a new object instead

$date1=new DateTime('2019-05-30'); // date object created. 
$date1->add(new DateInterval('P1Y3M')); // inerval of 1 year 3 months added
echo $date1->format('Y-M-d'); // Output is 2020-Aug-30
/// by using DateTimeImmutable ///
$date1=new DateTimeImmutable('2019-05-30'); // date object created . 
$date1->add(new DateInterval('P1Y3M')); // inerval of 1 year 3 months added
echo $date1->format('Y-M-d'); //  Output is 2019-May-30

In case of date object created using DateTimeImmutable after adding the interval the original value never changes.
PHP Date Functions diff(): Difference in two dates

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Date Add

Using DateTimeImmutable object

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