Date & time output in any required format from any input format using createFromFormat()

Parse a known date format with createFromFormat()

DateTimeImmutable::createFromFormat() parses input according to a format you define. It returns false when parsing fails, so check the result before calling format().

$date = DateTimeImmutable::createFromFormat('d-m-Y', '14-09-2026');
if ($date === false) {
    $errors = DateTimeImmutable::getLastErrors();
    print_r($errors);
} else {
    echo $date->format('Y-m-d');
}

For validation, also inspect getLastErrors(); PHP 8.2+ may return false when there are no warnings or errors.

Object oriented style

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d.n.Y', '06.1.2017');
echo $date->format('Y-M-d'); // Output is 2017-Jan-06

Procedural style

$date = date_create_from_format('Y/F/j', '2017/April/6');
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d'); // Output is 2017-04-06

Using Time formats

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('d/m/Y H:i:s', '06/12/2017 23:34:59');
echo $date->format('h:i:s A'); // Output is 11:34:59 PM

Example: Parsing Custom Date Formats

$date = date_create_from_format('Y-m-d H:i:s', '2023-09-25 12:45:00');
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d H:i:s');  // Output: 2023-09-25 12:45:00

Example: Handling Invalid Date Inputs

$date = date_create_from_format('Y-m-d', '2023-13-45');
if (!$date) {
    echo "Invalid date format!";
}

Example: Comparing Dates

$date1 = date_create_from_format('Y-m-d', '2023-09-25');
$date2 = date_create_from_format('Y-m-d', '2022-09-25');
echo $date1 > $date2 ? 'Date 1 is later' : 'Date 2 is later';  // Output: Date 1 is later

Here is a list of Chars which can be used for creating different date formats.

Type	Ch	DESCRIPTION
Date	d	day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros; i.e. '01' to '31'
	j	day of the month without leading zeros; i.e. '1' to '31'
Day	D	day of the week, textual, 3 letters; i.e. 'Fri'
	l	day of the week, textual, long; i.e. 'Saturday'
	w	day of the week, numeric, i.e. '0' (Sunday) to '6' (Saturday)
	z	day of the year; i.e. '0' to '365'
	r	RFC 822 formatted date; i.e. 'Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200' (added in PHP 4.0.4)
	S	Suffix for day of the month in 2 chrs ( with j )
	z	Day of the year ( from 0 to 365 )
Month	m	month; With leading zeros; i.e. '01' to '12'
	n	month without leading zeros; i.e. '1' to '12'
	M	month, textual, 3 letters; i.e. 'Jan'
	F	month, textual, long; i.e. 'January'
	t	Number of days in the month ( 28 to 31 )
Year	L	1 for Leap year, 0 if not
	o	ISO-8601 week-numbering year.
	Y	year, 4 digits; i.e. '2018'
	y	year, 2 digits; i.e. '19'
Time
Hour	g	hour, 12-hour format without leading zeros; i.e. '1' to '12'
	G	hour, 24-hour format without leading zeros; i.e. '0' to '23'
	h	hour, 12-hour format; i.e. '01' to '12'
	H	hour, 24-hour format; i.e. '00' to '23'
Minutes	i	minutes; i.e. '00' to '59'
Seconds	s	seconds; i.e. '00' to '59'
	a	'am' or 'pm'
	A	'AM' or 'PM'
	B	Swatch Internet time
	I	'1' if Daylight Savings Time, '0' otherwise.
	L	boolean for whether it is a leap year; i.e. '0' or '1'
	T	Timezone setting of this machine; i.e. 'MDT'
	U	seconds since the epoch
	Z	timezone offset in seconds (i.e. '-43200' to '43200'). The offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive.
	e, O, P and T	timezone identifier ( e ) , difference in Hour and minutes to GMT (O),+- Hour : Minute (P), Short name of zone ( IST) (T)

PHP Date Functions Select Timezone to get current date and time using different formats Dropdown list for Month Year & Date

Subhendu Mohapatra

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createFromFormat():Changing from any input format to required date format

Parse a known date format with createFromFormat()

Example: Parsing Custom Date Formats

Example: Handling Invalid Date Inputs

Example: Comparing Dates

Subhendu Mohapatra