Example to explain how to convert date into timestamp in php

PHP is a widely used programming language for creating dynamic websites and applications. When it comes to handling dates and times, PHP provides many useful functions and methods, one of the important ones is converting dates to timestamps. In this article, we will look at how to convert date to timestamp using PHP.

What is a timestamp?

Time stamp (time stamp) is a numerical representation of date and time, usually expressed as the number of seconds from the "UNIX Epoch" (January 1, 1970 00:00:00 UTC). A timestamp is a universal time representation because it does not depend on any specific time zone or date format.

Convert date to timestamp using PHP

In PHP, we can use the date function to convert the date to string representation, and then use the strtotime function to convert it to a timestamp. Let's take a look at an example:

$date_string = '2021-06-01';
$timestamp = strtotime($date_string);
echo $timestamp;

In this example, we first define a date string "2021-06-01" to be converted. We then convert it to a timestamp using the strtotime function and store the result in the $timestamp variable. Finally, we use the echo statement to output the value of the $timestamp variable, which is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch.

The output should be 1622505600, which is the result of converting "2021-06-01" to a timestamp.

We can make this process a little more interesting and try to convert the date to a timestamp in a specific time zone. Let's look at a more complex example:

$date_string = '2021-06-01 12:00:00';
$timezone_string = 'Europe/Paris';
$timezone = new DateTimeZone($timezone_string);

$date = new DateTime($date_string);
$date->setTimeZone($timezone);
$timestamp = $date->getTimestamp();

echo $timestamp;

In this example, we first define a date string "2021-06-01 12:00:00", which means 12:00 pm on June 1 . Then, we define a time zone string "Europe/Paris", which represents the Paris time zone. We create a new DateTimeZone object and store it in the $timezone variable.

Next, we create a new DateTime object and initialize it to the date and time specified in $date_string. We then set it to the Paris time zone using the setTimeZone method.

Finally, we use the getTimestamp method to convert the date to a timestamp and store it in the $timestamp variable. Finally, we use the echo statement to output the value of $timestamp, which will be the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch, relative to the Paris time zone.

Summary

PHP provides many powerful functions and methods for working with dates and times. One of the common functions is to convert date to timestamp. We can use the strtotime function to convert a date string to a timestamp, or use the DateTime and DateTimeZone classes to take date and time zone information as input and then convert to a timestamp. No matter which method you use, PHP provides very convenient tools to easily convert dates and timestamps.

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