PHP

HOW TO USE THE mktime() FUNCTION IN PHP

The mktime() function returns the Unix Timestamp version of a specified date. The Unix Timestamp is the number of seconds since 00:00:00 GMT on 1 January 1970. The mktime() function takes seven arguments, all of which are optional. If arguments are not specified, the values will be used from the current local date and time.

The general format of the mktime() function is as follows:

mktime(hour,minute,second,month,day,year,is_dst);

The first six arguments are self-explanatory. The seventh is whether time is daylight savings time. Takes 1 if it is, 0 if is not or -1 (default) if unknown.

Example:

echo date("M-d-Y", mktime(0, 0, 0, 12, 28, 2006));

This outputs:

Dec-28-2006

Now consider this example:

echo date("M-d-Y", mktime(0, 0, 0, 10, 34, 2006));

Note that the day argument is 34 and hence out of range - we know there is no 34 days in October or any month for that matter but let's what happens when we echo this:

This outputs:

Nov-03-2006

If you work it out, you will notice that the date echoed above is correct. mktime() automatically works it out, even out-of-range inputs, and therefore this function is useful in date calculations.

See also:

date()
time()
gmdate()
strtotime()
microtime()