The following characters are recognized in the format parameter string

format
character Description Example returned values

Day --- ---

d Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros 01 to 31
A textual representation of a day, three
D Mon through Sun
letters
j Day of the month without leading zeros 1 to 31
l (lowercase A full textual representation of the day of the
Sunday through Saturday
'L') week
ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day 1 (for Monday) through 7
N
of the week (added in PHP 5.1.0) (for Sunday)
English ordinal suffix for the day of the st, nd, rd or th. Works well
S
month, 2 characters with j
Numeric representation of the day of the 0 (for Sunday) through 6
w
week (for Saturday)
z The day of the year (starting from 0) 0 through 365
Week --- ---
ISO-8601 week number of year, weeks Example: 42 (the 42nd
W
starting on Monday (added in PHP 4.1.0) week in the year)
Month --- ---
A full textual representation of a month, such
F January through December
as January or March
Numeric representation of a month, with
m 01 through 12
leading zeros
A short textual representation of a month,
M Jan through Dec
three letters
Numeric representation of a month, without
n 1 through 12
leading zeros
t Number of days in the given month 28 through 31
Year --- ---
1 if it is a leap year, 0
L Whether it's a leap year
otherwise.
ISO-8601 year number. This has the same
value as Y, except that if the ISO week
o number (W) belongs to the previous or next Examples: 1999 or 2003
year, that year is used instead. (added in PHP
5.1.0)
A full numeric representation of a year, 4
Y Examples: 1999 or 2003
digits
 The following characters are recognized in the format parameter string
format
character Description Example returned values

y A two digit representation of a year Examples: 99 or 03

Time --- ---
a Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem am or pm
A Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem AM or PM
B Swatch Internet time 000 through 999
12-hour format of an hour without leading
g 1 through 12
zeros
24-hour format of an hour without leading
G 0 through 23
zeros
h 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros 01 through 12
H 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros 00 through 23
i Minutes with leading zeros 00 to 59
s Seconds, with leading zeros 00 through 59
u Milliseconds (added in PHP 5.2.2) Example: 54321
Timezone --- ---
Examples: UTC, GMT,
e Timezone identifier (added in PHP 5.1.0)
Atlantic/Azores
Whether or not the date is in daylight saving 1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0
I (capital i)
time otherwise.
O Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours Example: +0200
Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with
P colon between hours and minutes (added in Example: +02:00
PHP 5.1.3)
T Timezone abbreviation Examples: EST, MDT ...
Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for
Z timezones west of UTC is always negative, -43200 through 50400
and for those east of UTC is always positive.
Full
--- ---
Date/Time
2004-02-
c ISO 8601 date (added in PHP 5)
12T15:19:21+00:00
Example: Thu, 21 Dec 2000
r » RFC 2822 formatted date
16:01:07 +0200
Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1
U See also time()
1970 00:00:00 GMT)