In 32-bit system the unix timestamp will overflow if the date goes beyond year 2038 and this method will return false. In 64-bit systems this function will still work as intended. For more information please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2038_problem.
DateTime::getTimestamp
DateTimeImmutable::getTimestamp
DateTimeInterface::getTimestamp
date_timestamp_get
(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)
DateTime::getTimestamp -- DateTimeImmutable::getTimestamp -- DateTimeInterface::getTimestamp -- date_timestamp_get — Gets the Unix timestamp
Description
Object oriented style
public DateTime::getTimestamp(): int
public DateTimeImmutable::getTimestamp(): int
public DateTimeInterface::getTimestamp(): int
Procedural style
Gets the Unix timestamp.
Parameters
This function has no parameters.
Return Values
Returns the Unix timestamp representing the date.
Changelog
| Version | Description |
|---|---|
| 8.0.0 |
These functions no longer return false on failure.
|
Examples
Example #1 DateTime::getTimestamp() example
Object oriented style
<?php
$date = new DateTime();
echo $date->getTimestamp();
?>
Procedural style
<?php
$date = date_create();
echo date_timestamp_get($date);
?>
The above examples will output something similar to:
1272509157
See Also
- DateTime::setTimestamp() - Sets the date and time based on an Unix timestamp
- DateTime::format() - Returns date formatted according to given format
add a note
User Contributed Notes 3 notes
heiccih at gmail dot com ¶
10 years ago
Justin Heesemann ¶
13 years ago
Note that for dates before the unix epoch getTimestamp() will return false, whereas format("U") will return a negative number.
<?php
$date = new DateTime("1899-12-31");
// "-2209078800"
echo $date->format("U");
// false
echo $date->getTimestamp();
?>
Julien Bornstein ¶
3 years ago
Please note that DateTime::gettimestamp() will return an integer, but DateTime::format("U") will return a string.
timestamp must always be typed as int because in PHP, timestamps are integers.
eg:
- strftime ( string $format [, int $timestamp = time() ] ) : string
- time() // return int
- ...
So IMHO, as PHP becomes more and more a typed language, avoid using DateTime::format("U") to avoid this kind of errors "strftime() expects parameter 2 to be int, string given"
