strtotime

Description

The function expects to be given a string containing an English date format and will try to parse that format into a UNIX timestamp relative to the timestamp given in now, or the current time if none is supplied. Upon failure, -1 is returned.

Because strtotime() behaves according to GNU date syntax, have a look at the GNU manual page titled Date Input Formats. Described there is valid syntax for the time parameter.

Example 1. strtotime() examples <?php echo strtotime ("now"), "\n"; echo strtotime ("10 September 2000"), "\n"; echo strtotime ("+1 day"), "\n"; echo strtotime ("+1 week"), "\n"; echo strtotime ("+1 week 2 days 4 hours 2 seconds"), "\n"; echo strtotime ("next Thursday"), "\n"; echo strtotime ("last Monday"), "\n"; ?>

Example 2. Checking for failure <?php $str = 'Not Good'; if (($timestamp = strtotime($str)) === -1) { echo "The string ($str) is bogus"; } else { echo "$str == ". date('l dS of F Y h:i:s A',$timestamp); } ?>