Date and Time in PHP

Introduction

Time and date are usually handled with a function date

In the OOP paradigm you can use DateTimeImmutable

Examples

Today date - numbers only

date("Y-m-d"); date("Y:m:d");

2026-11-07
2026:11:07

Today date - month spelled out

date("Y-M-d");
date("Y:M:d");

2026-Nov-07
2026:Nov:07

Weekday spelled out

date("D");

Sat

Weekday plus date

date("D-Y-M-d");
date("D:Y:M:d");
date("D Y:M:d");

Sat-2026-Nov-07
Sat:2026:Nov:07
Sat 2026:Nov:07

Month and day plus time

date("M d H:i:s");

Nov 07 08:11:43

Current time in the format Epoch Time

time();

1794067903

DateTimeImmutable: OOP example

If you know OOP a little you can create a DateTimeImmutable object and use it

$now = new DateTimeImmutable('now', new DateTimeZone('Europe/Moscow')); echo'Moscow time: ' echo $now->format('H:i:s');

Moscow time: 19:11:43

UTC time in PHP

$utc = new DateTimeImmutable('now', new DateTimeZone('UTC')); echo 'UTC: ' echo $utc->format('H:i:s');

UTC
16:11:43

Week number in PHP

In some countries, for example in Finland planning is based on the week number.

Find out the current week number with the following code

$now = new DateTimeImmutable('now', new DateTimeZone('Europe/Moscow')); echo'Current week number: ' echo $now->format('W');

Current week number: 45

Article author: Andrei Olegovich