How to convert a PHP timestamp into a human readable format

Timestamps are great for the following reason. They can be converted into any chosen format without having to do much pre-converting. This saves a lot of time compared to times and dates stored in human readable formats.

How then do you convert a timestamp into something human readable? In PHP the function for this job is strftime:


To establish the format we can use alphanumeric values that are then translated into the appropriate data. Here is an example converting the unix code 1238706731 into 02 Apr 2009:


Here is a list of format codes:

Shortcut for weekdays (Mon, Tue, Wed)	%a
Full name of weekdays (Monday, Tuesday)	%A
Shortcut of the month (Jan, Feb, Mar)	%b
Month Written out (January, February)	%B
Day of the month with leading Zero	%d
24 Hour format with leading Zero	%H
12 Hour format with leading Zero	%I
Day of the year 001-366	%j
Month without leading Zero	%m
Minutes as number (0-59)	%M
AM or PM	%p
Seconds as numbers (0-59)	%S
Week number starting first Sunday	%U
Week number starting first Monday	%W
Numeric representation of the day of the week	%w
Two digit year representation (99)	%y
Four digit year representation (1999)	%Y
Difference to a time zone	%Z