PHP | date_create() Function

Hello folks! welcome back to a new edition of our tutorial on PHP. In this tutorial guide, we are going to be studying about the PHP date_create() Function.

The PHP date_create() function is an alias of the built-in PHP DateTime::_construct, a constructor of the DateTime class. Where, DateTime class represents date and time in PHP. This PHP function accepts a date time string and time zone as parameters and create a DateTime object accordingly.

By default, this function creates an object of the current date/time.

Syntax

Following below is the syntax to use this function -

date_create([$date_time, $timezone]);

READ: PHP | checkdate() Function

Parameter Details

Sr.No	Parameter & Description
1	date_time (Optional) This is the date/time string (in supported formats) for which you need to create a DateTime object.
2	timezone (Optional) This represents the timezone of the given time.

Return Value

It returns the created DateTime object.

PHP Version

This function was first introduced as part of core PHP v 5.2.0 and, works with all the later versions.

Example1

Try the following example. Here, we are creating a DateTime object, formatting it, and then printing the result to the screen -

<?php
   //Date string
   $date_string = "25-09-1989";
   //Creating a DateTime object
   $date_time_Obj = date_create($date_string);
   //formatting the date to print it
   $format = date_format($date_time_Obj, "d-m-Y H:i:s");
   print($format);
?>

Output

When the above code is executed, it will produce the following result -

25-09-1989 00:00:00

Example2

Following example below creates a date, formats it as date and time separately -

<?php
   $dateString = '11-06-2012 12:50 GMT';
   $dateTime = date_create($dateString);
   print("Date: ".$dateTime->format('d-m-y')); 
   print("\n");
   print("Time: ".$dateTime->format('H:i:s')); 
?>

Output

When the above code is executed, it will produce the following result -

Date: 11-06-12
Time: 12:50:00

Example3

The following example creates a DateTime object specifying both date string and time zone -

<?php
   //Date string
   $date_string = "25-09-1989, 07:32:41 GMT";
   //Creating a DateTime object
   $tz = 'Indian/Mahe';   
   $date_time_Obj = date_create($date_string, new DateTimeZone($tz));
   //formatting the date to print it
   $format = date_format($date_time_Obj, "d-m-y H:i:s");
   print($format);
?>

Output

When the above code is executed, it will produce the following result -

Array
25-09-89 07:32:41

Example4

In the following example, we are invoking the built-in date_create() function without any parameters. This creates the object of the current time -

<?php
   //Creating a DateTime object
   $date_time_Obj = date_create();
   //formatting the date to print it
   print(date_format($date_time_Obj, "d-m-y H:i:s"));
?>

Output

When the above code is executed, it will produce the following result -

04-05-20 12:41:31

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Alright guys! This is where we are going to be rounding up for this tutorial post. In our next tutorial, we are going to be discussing about the PHP date_date_set() Function.

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Thanks for reading and bye for now.