PHP date_create_from_format() Function

Definition and Usage

The date_create_from_format() function is an alias of DateTime::createFromFormat(). Using this you can create a DateTime object.

This function accepts a time string and format string as parameters, parses the given time string in the specified format and returns the result as a DateTime object.

Syntax

date_create_from_format($date)

Parameters

Sr.No	Parameter & Description
1	format(Mandatory) This is a string value representing the format in which you need to parse the given time.
2	time(Mandatory) This is a string value representing the time you need to parse.
3	timezone(Optional) This is an object of DateTimeZone class representing the desired timezone.

Sr.No

Parameter & Description

format(Mandatory)

This is a string value representing the format in which you need to parse the given time.

time(Mandatory)

This is a string value representing the time you need to parse.

timezone(Optional)

This is an object of DateTimeZone class representing the desired timezone.

Return Values

PHP date_create_from_format() function returns an DateTime object representing the parsed time. Incase of failure this function returns the boolean value false.

PHP Version

This function was first introduced in PHP Version 5.3.0 and, works with all the later versions.

Example

Following example demonstrates the usage of the date_create_from_format() function −

<?php
   //Creating a DateTime object
   $date = "25-Mar-1989";
   $format = "d-M-Y";
   $res = date_create_from_format($format, $date);
   print(date_format($res, "Y-m-d"));
?>

This will produce following result −

1989-03-25

Example

Now, let us try passing value to the the optional timezone parameter −

<?php
   //Creating a DateTime object
   $date = "25-Mar-1989";
   $format = "d-M-Y";
   $tz = new DateTimeZone('Indian/Mahe');  
   $res = date_create_from_format($format, $date, $tz);
   print date_format($res, "Y-m-d");
?>

This will produce following result −

1989-03-25

Example

Following example demonstrates date_create_from_format() function with different formats −

<?php
   $res1 = date_create_from_format("j.n.Y", "25.8.2014");
   print(date_format($res1, "Y-m-d"));
   print("\n");
   $res2 = date_create_from_format('Y-d-m H:i:s', '2014-25-08 12:20:25');
   print(date_format($res2, "Y-m-d H:i:s"));  
?>

This will produce the following output −

2014-08-25
2014-08-25 12:20:25

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