DateTime to create date and time object in PHP

DateTime in PHP class is available in PHP 5 and higher versions . This creates a date object which we can use in our script. Here is the code to create a date object and use it .

$today   = new DateTime;

echo $today->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

The above example will display today's date and time in Year-month-date Hour:minutes:second format. Here is the output

2021-04-20 06:08:52

If you are getting warning message saying not to rely on system time zone , then add this line to the top.

date_default_timezone_set('America/Chicago');

$today   = new DateTime;

echo $today->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

Let us try differently

date_default_timezone_set('America/Chicago');

$date = new DateTime("now");

echo $date->format('d-m-y H:i:s');

echo "<br><br>";

$date = new DateTime("tomorrow");

echo $date->format('d-m-y H:i:s');

Out put is here

20-04-21 06:08:52

21-04-21 00:00:00

Another way ( object oriented style )

date_default_timezone_set('America/Chicago');

$date = new DateTime('2012-04-15 22:15:40');

echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') ;

Output is here

2012-04-15 22:15:40

Procedural style

$date = date_create('2018-11-29 23:15:40');
echo date_format($date, 'Y/m/d H:i:s');

2018/11/29 23:15:40

Using DateTimeZone

$date = new DateTime('2019-01-01 16:55:58', new DateTimeZone('America/Chicago'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:sP'); // Output is 2019-01-01 16:55:58-06:00

Output as ISO 8601 date time format

PHP Script to display date & time in ISO format.

echo date(DateTime::ISO8601);

echo "<br>";
$dt_object = new DateTime('NOW');
echo $dt_object->format('c'); 

echo "<br>";

echo $dt_object->format(DateTime::ISO8601);

Output is here

2021-04-20T06:08:52-0500
2021-04-20T06:08:52-05:00
2021-04-20T06:08:52-0500

Code	Output
$d = new DateTime('now'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-20
$d = new DateTime('19 July 2018'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2018-07-19
$d = new DateTime('Tomorrow'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-21
$d = new DateTime('Yesterday'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-19
$d = new DateTime('+1 day'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-21
$d = new DateTime('+1 week'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-27
$d = new DateTime('+1 week 5 days'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-05-02
$d = new DateTime('+1 month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-05-20
$d = new DateTime('+1 month 10 days'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-05-30
$d = new DateTime('+3 months -1 day'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-07-19
$d = new DateTime('+3 years'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2024-04-20
$d = new DateTime('+1 year 5 days'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2022-04-25
$d = new DateTime('Monday'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-26
$d = new DateTime('Monday +1 day '); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-27
$d = new DateTime('first day of this month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-01
$d = new DateTime('last day of this month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-04-30
$d = new DateTime('first day of previous month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-03-01
$d = new DateTime('last day of previous month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-03-31
$d = new DateTime('first day of next month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-05-01
$d = new DateTime('last day of next month'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2021-05-31
$d = new DateTime('last day of next month +1 hour'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d : H:i:s') ;	2021-05-31 : 07:08:52
$d = new DateTime('Monday +1 hour +20 minutes +10 seconds'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d : H:i:s') ;	2021-04-26 : 01:20:10
$d = DateTime::createFromFormat('d-m-Y', '11-06-2018'); $d = $d->modify('next monday'); echo $d->format('Y-m-d') ;	2018-06-18
echo date('m-d-Y',strtotime('24-06-2018 next Monday '));	06-25-2018

06-25-2018Here we are getting output as date object and then converting to string by using format. We can directly get date as string by using strtotime. By using this date object we can add, subtract or modify dates