Parses a time string according to a specified format

DateTime::createFromFormat

date_create_from_format

(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PHP 7)

DateTime::createFromFormat -- date_create_from_format — Parses a time string according to a specified format

Description

Object oriented stylepublic static DateTime::createFromFormat ( string $format , string $datetime [, $timezone ] ) : |false

Procedural style ( string $format , string $datetime [, $timezone ] ) : |false

Returns a new DateTime object representing the date and time specified by the datetime string, which was formatted in the given format.

Parameters

format

The format that the passed in string should be in. See the formatting options below. In most cases, the same letters as for the can be used.

The following characters are recognized in the format parameter string
format character Description Example parsable values
Day --- ---
d and j Day of the month, 2 digits with or without leading zeros 01 to 31 or 1 to 31
D and l A textual representation of a day Mon through Sun or Sunday through Saturday
S English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters. It's ignored while processing. st, nd, rd or th.
z The day of the year (starting from 0) 0 through 365
Month --- ---
F and M A textual representation of a month, such as January or Sept January through December or Jan through Dec
m and n Numeric representation of a month, with or without leading zeros 01 through 12 or 1 through 12
Year --- ---
Y A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits Examples: 1999 or 2003
y A two digit representation of a year (which is assumed to be in the range 1970-2069, inclusive) Examples: 99 or 03 (which will be interpreted as 1999 and 2003, respectively)
Time --- ---
a and A Ante meridiem and Post meridiem am or pm
g and h 12-hour format of an hour with or without leading zero 1 through 12 or 01 through 12
G and H 24-hour format of an hour with or without leading zeros 0 through 23 or 00 through 23
i Minutes with leading zeros 00 to 59
s Seconds, with leading zeros 00 through 59
v Milliseconds (up to three digits) Example: 12, 345
u Microseconds (up to six digits) Example: 45, 654321
Timezone --- ---
e, O, P and T Timezone identifier, or difference to UTC in hours, or difference to UTC with colon between hours and minutes, or timezone abbreviation Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores or +0200 or +02:00 or EST, MDT
Full Date/Time --- ---
U Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) Example: 1292177455
Whitespace and Separators --- ---
(space) One space or one tab Example:
# One of the following separation symbol: ;, :, /, ., ,, -, ( or ) Example: /
;, :, /, ., ,, -, ( or ) The specified character. Example: -
? A random byte Example: ^ (Be aware that for UTF-8 characters you might need more than one ?. In this case, using * is probably what you want instead)
* Random bytes until the next separator or digit Example: * in Y-*-d with the string 2009-aWord-08 will match aWord
! Resets all fields (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, fraction and timezone information) to the Unix Epoch Without !, all fields will be set to the current date and time.
| Resets all fields (year, month, day, hour, minute, second, fraction and timezone information) to the Unix Epoch if they have not been parsed yet Y-m-d| will set the year, month and day to the information found in the string to parse, and sets the hour, minute and second to 0.
+ If this format specifier is present, trailing data in the string will not cause an error, but a warning instead Use to find out whether trailing data was present.

Unrecognized characters in the format string will cause the parsing to fail and an error message is appended to the returned structure. You can query error messages with .

To include literal characters in format, you have to escape them with a backslash (\).

If format does not contain the character ! then portions of the generated time which are not specified in format will be set to the current system time.

If format contains the character !, then portions of the generated time not provided in format, as well as values to the left-hand side of the !, will be set to corresponding values from the Unix epoch.

The Unix epoch is 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC.

datetime

String representing the time.

timezone

A object representing the desired time zone.

If timezone is omitted and datetime contains no timezone, the current timezone will be used.

Note:

The timezone parameter and the current timezone are ignored when the datetime parameter either contains a UNIX timestamp (e.g. 946684800) or specifies a timezone (e.g. 2010-01-28T15:00:00+02:00).

Return Values

Returns a new DateTime instance or FALSE on failure.

Changelog

Version Description
7.3.0 The v format specifier has been added.

Examples

Example #1 DateTime::createFromFormat() example

Object oriented style

<?php
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('j-M-Y', '15-Feb-2009');
echo $date->format('Y-m-d');
?>

Procedural style<?php
$date = date_create_from_format('j-M-Y', '15-Feb-2009');
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d');
?>

The above examples will output: 

2009-02-15

Example #2 Intricacies of DateTime::createFromFormat()<?php
echo 'Current time: ' . date('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";

$format = 'Y-m-d';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '2009-02-15');
echo "Format: $format; " . $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";

$format = 'Y-m-d H:i:s';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '2009-02-15 15:16:17');
echo "Format: $format; " . $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";

$format = 'Y-m-!d H:i:s';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '2009-02-15 15:16:17');
echo "Format: $format; " . $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";

$format = '!d';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '15');
echo "Format: $format; " . $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
?>

The above example will output something similar to: 

Current time: 2010-04-23 10:29:35
Format: Y-m-d; 2009-02-15 10:29:35
Format: Y-m-d H:i:s; 2009-02-15 15:16:17
Format: Y-m-!d H:i:s; 1970-01-15 15:16:17
Format: !d; 1970-01-15 00:00:00

Example #3 Format string with literal characters<?php
echo DateTime::createFromFormat('H\h i\m s\s','23h 15m 03s')->format('H:i:s');
?>

The above example will output something similar to: 

23:15:03

See Also

User Contributed Notes

mcab at acm dot org When using format "z Y" the function may return an incorrect date (as of 7.2.30).
I understand that this bug is being worked on but a simple solution that works now is to supply the year value first. i.e. always specify format "Y z".
parmonov98 at yandex dot ru sometimes we want unixtime rather than string date .
to get it from a string date,  do this.
$format = 'Y-m-d';
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat($format, '2009-02-15');
$date->format("U"); // will print unixtime.

I thought this would be helpful. e dot fortmeyer01 at gmail dot com Be aware:
If the day of the month is not provided, creating a DateTime object will produce different results depending on what the current day of the year is.
This is because the current system date will be used where values are not provided.

<?php
function printMonth($month) {
    echo DateTime::createFromFormat("F", "April")->format("F");
}

// on August 1st
printMonth("April");
// outputs April

// on August 31st
printMonth("April");
// outputs May
?> call4hemant at gmail dot com <?php

// case 1: 13 as month will be converted to month=01 with Year=Year+1
$oDateTime1 = DateTime::createFromFormat( 'Y-m-d', '2018-13-10');
echo $oDateTime1->format('Y-m-d');
// "2019-01-10" 

// case 2: 32 as date will convert date-01 and month=month+1
$oDateTime2= DateTime::createFromFormat( 'Y-m-d', '2018-12-32');
echo $oDateTime2->format('Y-m-d');
// "2019-01-10"            

echo phpversion();
// 7.2.7-1+ubuntu16.04.1+deb.sury.org+12019-01-102019-01-01

?> labs at stronghold dot KILLIT dot media dot eu Please note that several points here are wrong.
When using microseconds:

- The createFromFormat DOES NOT accept the ".v" modifier, unlike the formatting ones.

- When you provide microseconds to this function, YOU MUST LEFT PAD THEM to SIX digits with ZEROES.
If you don't, anything below 100000 will be RIGHT PADDED with zeroes.
(So that 999 becomes 9990000, while 1234 becomes 123400. (Also 0510 becomes 051000.)
But at least you can use milliseconds as microseconds. But then again, REMEMBER TO LEFT PAD them to 3 digits if necessary..

- WHAT?? Go provides SEVEN digits of MICROSECONDS?? Something there must definitely be wrong. Micro is, by definition, one millionth, so anything above 999999 is odd. c dot m dot tatro+php dot net at gmail dot com Be aware that using this method when calling an invalid date still generates a date. For instance

DateTime::createFromFormat('Y F j', '2016 February 40');

generates a date like such: 2016-03-11 Salman A Seems like setting the hours to any value resets the remaining time portion (minute, second and milliseconds) to zero:

<?php
                                                             // 2018-03-05 16:19:35.000000 <- now
DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d",     "2000-01-01"      ); // 2000-01-01 16:19:35.000000
DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d H",   "2000-01-01 00"   ); // 2000-01-01 00:00:00.000000
DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d H",   "2000-01-01 01"   ); // 2000-01-01 01:00:00.000000
DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d H:i", "2000-01-01 01:30"); // 2000-01-01 01:30:00.000000
?>

This is different from how missing year, month and dates are handled:

<?php
                                                             // 2018-03-05 16:19:35.000000 <- now
DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m H:i", "2000-01 01:30");      // 2000-01-05 01:30:00.000000
DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-d H:i", "2000-01 01:30");      // 2000-03-01 01:30:00.000000
?> Fabian Parsing RFC3339 strings can be very tricky when their are microseconds in the date string.

Since PHP 7 there is the undocumented constant DateTime::RFC3339_EXTENDED (value: Y-m-d\TH:i:s.vP), which can be used to output an RFC3339 string with microseconds:

<?php
$d = new DateTime();
var_dump($d->format(DateTime::RFC3339_EXTENDED)); // 2017-07-25T13:47:12.000+00:00
?>

But the same constant can't be used for parsing an RFC3339 string with microseconds, instead do:

<?php
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d\TH:i:s.uP", "2017-07-25T15:25:16.123456+02:00")
?>

But "u" can only parse microseconds up to 6 digits, but some language (like Go) return more than 6 digits for the microseconds, e.g.: "2017-07-25T15:50:42.456430712+02:00" (when turning time.Time to JSON with json.Marshal()). Currently there is no other solution than using a separate parsing library to get correct dates.

Note: the difference between "v" and "u" is just 3 digits vs. 6 digits. thflori createFromFormat('U') has a strange behaviour: it ignores the datetimezone and the resulting DateTime object will always have GMT+0000 timezone.

<?php

$dt = DateTime::createFromFormat('U', time(), new DateTimeZone('CET'));
var_dump($dt->format('Y-m-d H:i:s (T)'), date('Y-m-d H:i:s (T)', time()));

?>

The problem is microtime() and time() returning the timestamp in current timezone.  Instead of using time you can use 'now' but to get a DateTimeObject with microseconds you have to write it this way to be sure to get the correct datetime:

<?php

$dt = \DateTime::createFromFormat('U.u', microtime(true))->setTimezone(new \DateTimeZone(date('T')));

?> joereynolds952 at gmail dot com Just a note that it is possible to call createFromFormat non statically.

<?php
$today = new DateTime();
$today->createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2016-11-04'));
?>

Is perfectly valid.

We had to do this once we started using PHPMD which would complain about static methods. vijaycs85 at gmail dot com There is no option to specify date format 'c' (e.g. 2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00) directly. work around is to use Y-m-d\TH:i:sT rasmus at mindplay dot dk Note a weird and surprising inconsistency in `DateTime::createFromFormat()` and `DateTimeImmutable::createFromFormat()` when the format is `"U"` and these factory-functions are called with a Unix timestamp - in this case, the timezone argument is not only ignored (as per the documentation) but also *NOT APPLIED* the constructed object!

In other words, the timezone argument has no effect in this case, at all, which I found pretty surprising. Of course the timezone argument cannot be used in this case to parse the value, since it's a timezone-neutral Unix timestamp, but I was definitely expecting the factory-function to apply the specified timezone to the created object - this is especially surprising when it comes to `DateTimeImmutable`, since this behavior of the factory-function makes it impossible to create an instance from a timestamp and initialize the timezone with a single call; you will need a subsequent call to `setTimezone()` discarding the original object.

Very strange and confusing design :-* lsloan-php dot net at umich dot edu Reportedly, microtime() may return a timestamp number without a fractional part if the microseconds are exactly zero.  I.e., "1463772747" instead of the expected "1463772747.000000".  number_format() can create a correct string representation of the microsecond timestamp every time, which can be useful for creating DateTime objects when used with DateTime::createFromFormat():

<?php
$now = DateTime::createFromFormat('U.u', number_format(microtime(true), 6, '.', ''));
var_dump($now->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.u')); // E.g., string(26) "2016-05-20 19:36:26.900794" tuxedobob If you're here because you're trying to create a date from a week number, you want to be using setISODate, as I discovered here:

Albie at aveit dot org If you want to safely compare equality of a DateTime object without explicitly providing the time portion make use of the ! format character.

<?php
$date1 = DateTime::createFromFormat('!Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
sleep(2);
$date2 = DateTime::createFromFormat('!Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
/*
 $date1 and $date2 will both be set to a timestamp of "2012-10-17 00:00:00"
 var_dump($date1 == $date2); //will be true
 var_dump($date1 > $date2); //will be false
 var_dump($date1 < $date2); //will be false
*/
?>

If you omit the ! format character without explicitly providing the time portion your timestamp which will include the current system time in the stamp.

<?php
$date1 = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
sleep(2);
$date2 = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
var_dump($date1 == $date2); //will be false
var_dump($date1 >= $date2); //will be false
var_dump($date1 < $date2); //will be true
?> chernomyrdin at gmail dot com <?php
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('U.u', microtime(TRUE));
var_dump($date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s.u'));
?>
will print: 2015-11-19 11:37:29.125300 (the current time with microseconds) jplevene To convert an email header date use the following (important, notice the * at the end)

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('D, d M Y H:i:s O *', $email_date);

Some dates in email headers can be formatted as:
Fri, 12 Jun 2015 13:53:37 +0000 (UTC)

The "(UTC)" at the end of the date causes an error and will return a result of false unless the * is at the end. SeliusX Creating timestamps to the day can result in hidden bugs cause hours are taken from now:

Example:
$newDateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2014-12-10');
$newDateTime->format('H') != '00';

Better use time too or erase the values later on:
$newDateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d h:i', '2014-12-10 00:00');
or:
$newDateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat(''Y-m-d', '2014-12-10');
$newDateTime->setTime(0, 0); ELPI It can be confusing creating new DateTime from timestamp when your default timezone (date.timezone) is different from UTC and you are used to date()-function.

date()-function automatically uses your current timezone setting but DateTime::createFromFormat (or DateTime constructor) does not (it ignores tz-parameter).

You can get same results as date() by setting the timezone after object creation.

<?php
$ts = 1414706400;
$date1 = date("Y-m-d H:i", $ts);
$date2 = DateTime::createFromFormat("U", $ts)->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone(date_default_timezone_get()))->format("Y-m-d H:i");
//$date1===$date2
?> nicodoggie at gmail dot com I've found that on PHP 5.5.13 (not sure if it happens on other versions) if you enter a month larger than 12 on a format that takes numeric months, the result will be a DateTime object with its month equal to the number modulo 12 instead of returning false.

<?php
var_dump(DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2013-22-01'));
?>

results in:
class DateTime#4 (3) {
  public $date =>
  string(19) "2014-10-01 13:05:05"
  public $timezone_type =>
  int(3)
  public $timezone =>
  string(3) "UTC"
} d dot shankarnarayana at gmail dot com Say if there is a string with  $date = "today is 2014 January 1";   and you need to extract "2014 January" using DateTime::createFromFormat().  As you can see in the string there is something odd like "today is" .Since that string (today is) does not correspond to a date format, we need to escape that.

In this case, each and every character on that string has to be escaped as shown below.

The code.

<?php
$paragraph = "today is 2014 January 1";
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('\t\o\d\a\y \i\s Y F j', $paragraph);
echo $date->format('Y F'); //"prints" 2014 January

- Shankar Damodaran mail at marcel-juenemann dot de Note that the U option does not support negative timestamps (before 1970). You have to use date for that. falundir at gmail dot com Be warned that DateTime object created without explicitely providing the time portion will have the current time set instead of 00:00:00.

<?php
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
var_dump($date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s')); //will print 2012-10-17 13:57:34 (the current time)
?>

That's also why you can't safely compare equality of such DateTime objects:

<?php
$date1 = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
sleep(2);
$date2 = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', '2012-10-17');
var_dump($date1 == $date2); //will be false
var_dump($date1 >= $date2); //will be false
var_dump($date1 < $date2); //will be true
?> thomas dot ribiere at allgoob dot com Not a bug, but a strange issue today 2012-08-30 :

<?php
$date = "2011-02";
echo $date."\n";
$d = DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m",$date);
echo $d->format("Y-m");
?>
will display :
2011-02
2011-03

It's because there is no 2011-02-30, so datetime will take march insteed of february ...

To fix it :
<?php
$date = "2011-02";
echo $date."\n";
$d = DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d",$date."-01");
echo $d->format("Y-m");
?> kamil dot wegrzynowicz at baobaz dot com It seems that a pipe ('|') option in formating string works only with PHP version 5.3.7 and newer. We had an issue with it on versions 5.3.2, 5.3.3, 5.3.6. Yet it was fine with 5.3.8 and 5.3.10.

By short example:
<?php
$timezone = new DateTimeZone('UTC');
$dateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat('dmY|', '01011972', $timezone);
//$dateTime is FALSE in PHP v <5.3.8
?>

Instead we used a workaround:
<?php
$dateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat('dmY', '01011972', $timezone);
$dateTime->format('Y-m-d 00:00:00');
?>
which works fine.

====

Modified by admin to correct for version (5.3.7 not 5.3.8) Aurelien Marchand Beware specifying a timezone in the format as it will take precedence over the DateTimeZone object.

<?php
$timezone = "UTC"; // or any other valid name for a timezone
$d= DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d H:i:s T","2011-11-06 00:00:00 EDT",new DateTimeZone($timezone));
echo $d->format("Y-m-d H:i:s T - U");
// returns "2011-11-06 00:00:00 EDT - 1320552000"
// specifying $timezone = "Pacific/Honolulu"; would return the same string
?>

This gets hairy when you are playing with transition from summer time to winter time! For instance, in Toronto, the time change happens on 2011-11-06. One second after 01:59:59 (EDT), the time becomes 01:00:00 (EST), or 1320559200 in Unix timestamp.

However, notice the following:
<?php
$d = DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d H:i:s","2011-11-06 01:00:00",new DateTimeZone("EST"));
echo $d->format("Y-m-d H:i:s T U");
// returns "2011-11-06 01:00:00 EDT 1320555600" instead of "2011-11-06 01:00:00 EST 1320559200"

// so the correct way is to do:
$d = DateTime::createFromFormat("Y-m-d H:i:s T","2011-11-06 01:00:00 EST",new DateTimeZone($timezone)); // set $timezone to any valid string for DateTimeZone, it doesn't matter
echo $d->format("Y-m-d H:i:s T U");
// returns "2011-11-06 01:00:00 EST - 1320559200" as wanted

?> klugg at tlen dot pl In order to use a DateTimeZone, don't enter one of the DateTimeZone::Europe, DateTimeZone::Asia etc. constants, but create a DateTimeZone object with verbal timezone name passed as a string:
<?php
$eventDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('m/d/y h:i', '02/26/11 08:00', new DateTimeZone('Europe/Warsaw'));
echo date_format($eventDate, 'Y-m-d'); //prints "2011-02-26"

?>