strtotime()

strtotime() — Parse about any English textual datetime description into a Unix timestamp.

Built-in function of PHP 8.5. The manual lists it as available in PHP 4, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8. This page is the reference card: signature, parameters and return value, plus the changelog and the example the manual provides.

What it does

The Unix timestamp that this function returns does not contain information about time zones. In order to do calculations with date/time information, you should use the more capable DateTimeImmutable.

Signature

strtotime(string $datetime, ?int $baseTimestamp = null): int|false

Parameters

ParameterTypeWhat it takes
$datetimestringA date/time string. Valid formats are explained in Date and Time Formats.
$baseTimestamp?intThe timestamp which is used as a base for the calculation of relative dates.

Return value

Returns a timestamp on success, false otherwise.

Example

A runnable snippet:

echo strtotime("now"), "\n"; echo strtotime("10 September 2000"), "\n"; echo strtotime("+1 day"), "\n"; echo strtotime("+1 week"), "\n"; echo strtotime("+1 week 2 days 4 hours 2 seconds"), "\n"; echo strtotime("next Thursday"), "\n"; echo strtotime("last Monday"), "\n";

Changelog

VersionChange
8.0.0baseTimestamp is nullable now.

See also

checkdate(), strptime()

All PHP 8.5 built-in functions

Reference card built from the PHP manual page strtotime() (PHP documentation, CC BY 3.0). The page is generated from the manual, so the wording of the parameter and return value text follows php.net.