strptime()

strptime() — Parse a time/date generated with strftime().

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

The PHP manual marks this function as deprecated (since PHP 8.2, use date_parse_from_format() (for locale-independent parsing), or IntlDateFormatter::parse() (for locale-dependent parsing) instead): do not use it in new code.

What it does

strptime() returns an array with the timestamp parsed, or false on error.

Signature

strptime(string $timestamp, string $format): array|false

Parameters

Parameter	Type	What it takes
$timestamp (string)	mixed	The string to parse (e.g. returned from strftime()).
$format (string)	mixed	The format used in timestamp (e.g. the same as used in strftime()). Note that some of the format options available to strftime() may not have any effect within strptime(); the exact subset that are supported will vary based on the operating system and C library in use.

Return value

Returns an array or false on failure. The following parameters are returned in the array parameters Description "tm_sec" Seconds after the minute (0-61) "tm_min" Minutes after the hour (0-59) "tm_hour" Hour since midnight (0-23) "tm_mday" Day of the month (1-31) "tm_mon" Months since January (0-11) "tm_year" Years since 1900 "tm_wday" Days since Sunday (0-6) "tm_yday" Days since January 1 (0-365) "unparsed" the timestamp part which was not recognized using the specified format

Example

A runnable snippet:

$format = '%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S'; $strf = strftime($format); echo "$strf\n"; print_r(strptime($strf, $format));

Output:

03/10/2004 15:54:19 Array ( [tm_sec] => 19 [tm_min] => 54 [tm_hour] => 15 [tm_mday] => 3 [tm_mon] => 9 [tm_year] => 104 [tm_wday] => 0 [tm_yday] => 276 [unparsed] => )

Changelog

Version	Change
8.1.0	This function has been deprecated. Use date_parse_from_format() instead (for locale-independent parsing), or IntlDateFormatter::parse() (for locale-dependent parsing)