What is PHP UNIX timestamp? How to convert?

PHP Time to Timestamp Online - Make time processing easier

PHP is a widely used open source scripting language and has a wide range of applications in web development. In backend development, timestamps are very useful in many situations. For newbies, the concept of timestamps is somewhat abstract. However, once you understand how to convert PHP time to timestamp online, it can become a good helper for you.

The following will introduce how to use PHP time to timestamp online, as well as some of its applications.

What is a UNIX timestamp?

UNIX timestamp is a numerical representation of time using ordinary time. A UNIX timestamp is the number of seconds that have elapsed since January 1, 1970, 0:00:00 UTC. Therefore, a UNIX timestamp represents the number of seconds since January 1, 1970, 0:00:00 UTC. Since the timestamp generally starts on January 1, 1970, it is also called an "epoch".

PHP timestamp conversion function

PHP provides several methods to convert time into timestamp. The most commonly used method is time(), which returns the number of seconds from the current time to a UNIX timestamp.

Now, let's see how to convert ordinary time to UNIX timestamp. We can use strtotime function in PHP which will convert string time to UNIX timestamp.

For example, in the code below, I assign '2022-01-01 00:00:00' to the variable $time, then use the strtotime() function to convert it to a timestamp, and Saved in the variable $timestamp:

$time = '2022-01-01 00:00:00';
$timestamp = strtotime($time);
echo $timestamp;

The output result of the above code is:

1640995200

This number is the timestamp, indicating the distance from 0:00:00 on January 1, 2022 to UNIX time The number of seconds to poke.

Convert online using PHP Time to Timestamp

Before you start writing code, you can use online tools to convert time to timestamp. This is useful when you need to quickly view a timestamp.

Open your browser and search for "PHP time to timestamp online" to find many tools. Here, I recommend a very easy-to-use free online tool: timestampgenerator.com. This website allows you to quickly convert ordinary times to timestamps. All you need to do is enter the time and click "Generate Code".

On the homepage, you can see a tool that allows you to quickly convert time to timestamp. First, select the necessary time zone, then enter the time you want to convert, click the "Generate Code" button and the tool will generate the code for you and display the timestamp.

Use timestamps for date/time calculations

After converting the time to a timestamp, you can perform date/time calculations more conveniently, such as calculating the time difference between two times. Here is an example showing how to calculate the time difference by comparing timestamps:

// 计算两个时间之间的差值
$first_time = strtotime('2022-01-02 00:00:00');
$second_time = strtotime('2022-01-01 00:00:00');

$difference = $first_time - $second_time;
echo "差值为：" . $difference . " 秒";

The output of the above code is:

差值为：86400 秒

Date/time formatting using timestamps

You can use the date() function in PHP to format the timestamp into a specified date/time format.

The following is an example showing how to use a date/time formatter to format a timestamp into month/day/year format:

// 将时间戳转换为日期格式
$timestamp = strtotime('2022-01-01 00:00:00');
$date = date('m/d/Y', $timestamp);
echo $date;

The output of the above code is:

01/01/2022

Conclusion

In PHP development, timestamp is a very useful tool. Learning to use timestamps to convert ordinary time to UNIX timestamps can give you a clearer understanding of how time is processed and how it is used in different applications. Using online tools can help you complete this task faster, but understanding what the code means is always the key to success.

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