Date/Time Functions
PHP Manual

gmdate

Format a GMT/UTC date/time

Description

string gmdate ( string $format [, int $timestamp = time() ] )

Identical to the date function except that the time returned is Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

Parameters

format

The format of the outputted date string. See the formatting options for the date function.

timestamp

The optional timestamp parameter is an integer Unix timestamp that defaults to the current local time if a timestamp is not given. In other words, it defaults to the value of time.

Return Values

Returns a formatted date string. If a non-numeric value is used for timestamp, FALSE is returned and an E_WARNING level error is emitted.

Changelog

Version Description
5.1.0 The valid range of a timestamp is typically from Fri, 13 Dec 1901 20:45:54 GMT to Tue, 19 Jan 2038 03:14:07 GMT. (These are the dates that correspond to the minimum and maximum values for a 32-bit signed integer). However, before PHP 5.1.0 this range was limited from 01-01-1970 to 19-01-2038 on some systems (e.g. Windows).
5.1.1 There are useful constants of standard date/time formats that can be used to specify the format parameter.

Examples

Example #1 gmdate example

When run in Finland (GMT +0200), the first line below prints "Jan 01 1998 00:00:00", while the second prints "Dec 31 1997 22:00:00".

<?php
echo date("M d Y H:i:s", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1998));
echo gmdate("M d Y H:i:s", mktime(0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1998));
?>

See Also

  • date
  • mktime
  • gmmktime
  • strftime