Date Formats

This page describes the different date formats that the strtotime(), DateTime and date_create() parser understands.

Used Symbols

Description	Format	Examples
daysuf	"st" | "nd" | "rd" | "th"
dd	([0-2]?[0-9] | "3"[01]) daysuf?	"7th", "22nd", "31"
DD	"0" [0-9] | [1-2][0-9] | "3" [01]	"07", "31"
m	'january' | 'february' | 'march' | 'april' | 'may' | 'june' | 'july' | 'august' | 'september' | 'october' | 'november' | 'december' | 'jan' | 'feb' | 'mar' | 'apr' | 'may' | 'jun' | 'jul' | 'aug' | 'sep' | 'sept' | 'oct' | 'nov' | 'dec' | "I" | "II" | "III" | "IV" | "V" | "VI" | "VII" | "VIII" | "IX" | "X" | "XI" | "XII"
M	'jan' | 'feb' | 'mar' | 'apr' | 'may' | 'jun' | 'jul' | 'aug' | 'sep' | 'sept' | 'oct' | 'nov' | 'dec'
mm	"0"? [0-9] | "1"[0-2]	"0", "04", "7", "12"
MM	"0" [0-9] | "1"[0-2]	"00", "04", "07", "12"
y	[0-9]{1,4}	"00", "78", "08", "8", "2008"
yy	[0-9]{2}	"00", "08", "78"
YY	[0-9]{4}	"2000", "2008", "1978"

Localized Notations

Description	Format	Examples
American month and day	mm "/" dd	"5/12", "10/27"
American month, day and year	mm "/" dd "/" y	"12/22/78", "1/17/2006", "1/17/6"
Four digit year, month and day with slashes	YY "/" mm "/" dd	"2008/6/30", "1978/12/22"
Four digit year and month (GNU)	YY "-" mm	"2008-6", "2008-06", "1978-12"
Year, month and day with dashes	y "-" mm "-" dd	"2008-6-30", "78-12-22", "8-6-21"
Day, month and four digit year, with dots, tabs or dashes	dd [.\t-] mm [.-] YY	"30-6-2008", "22.12.1978"
Day, month and two digit year, with dots or tabs	dd [.\t] mm "." yy	"30.6.08", "22\t12.78"
Day, textual month and year	dd ([ \t.-])* m ([ \t.-])* y	"30-June 2008", "22DEC78", "14 III 1879"
Textual month and four digit year (Day reset to 1)	m ([ \t.-])* YY	"June 2008", "DEC1978", "March 1879"
Four digit year and textual month (Day reset to 1)	YY ([ \t.-])* m	"2008 June", "1978-XII", "1879.MArCH"
Textual month, day and year	m ([ .\t-])* dd [,.stndrh\t ]+ y	"July 1st, 2008", "April 17, 1790", "May.9,78"
Textual month and day	m ([ .\t-])* dd [,.stndrh\t ]*	"July 1st,", "Apr 17", "May.9"
Day and textual month	d ([ .\t-])* m	"1 July", "17 Apr", "9.May"
Month abbreviation, day and year	M "-" DD "-" y	"May-09-78", "Apr-17-1790"
Year, month abbreviation and day	y "-" M "-" DD	"78-Dec-22", "1814-MAY-17"
Year (and just the year)	YY	"1978", "2008"
Textual month (and just the month)	m	"March", "jun", "DEC"

ISO8601 Notations

Description	Format	Examples
Eight digit year, month and day	YY MM DD	"15810726", "19780417", "18140517"
Four digit year, month and day with slashes	YY "/" MM "/" DD	"2008/06/30", "1978/12/22"
Two digit year, month and day with dashes	yy "-" MM "-" DD	"08-06-30", "78-12-22"
Four digit year with optional sign, month and day	[+-]? YY "-" MM "-" DD	"-0002-07-26", "+1978-04-17", "1814-05-17"

Note:

For the y and yy formats, years below 100 are handled in a special way when the y or yy symbol is used. If the year falls in the range 0 (inclusive) to 69 (inclusive), 2000 is added. If the year falls in the range 70 (inclusive) to 99 (inclusive) then 1900 is added. This means that "00-01-01" is interpreted as "2000-01-01".

Note:

The "Day, month and two digit year, with dots or tabs" format (dd [.\t] mm "." yy) only works for the year values 61 (inclusive) to 99 (inclusive) - outside those years the time format "HH [.:] MM [.:] SS" has precedence.

Note:

The "Year (and just the year)" format only works if a time string has already been found -- otherwise this format is recognised as HH MM.

Note:

It is possible to over- and underflow the dd and DD format. Day 0 means the last day of previous month, whereas overflows count into the next month. This makes "2008-08-00" equivalent to "2008-07-31" and "2008-06-31" equivalent to "2008-07-01" (June only has 30 days).

Note that as of PHP 5.1.0 the day range is restricted to 0-31 as indicated by the regular expression above. Thus "2008-06-32" is not a valid date string, for instance.

It is also possible to underflow the mm and MM formats with the value 0. A month value of 0 means December of the previous year. As example "2008-00-22" is equivalent to "2007-12-22".

If you combine the previous two facts and underflow both the day and the month, the following happens: "2008-00-00" first gets converted to "2007-12-00" which then gets converted to "2007-11-30". This also happens with the string "0000-00-00", which gets transformed into "-0001-11-30" (the year -1 in the ISO 8601 calendar, which is 2 BC in the proleptic Gregorian calendar).