Quick question about strftime.

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October 22nd, 2009, 10:14 AM

HHawk

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php5 - Quick question about strftime.

How do I display the following:

Current date - 1 day (yesterday's date)
Current date - 2 days (the date of the day before yesterday)
Current date - 3 days (the date of 3 days ago)
Current date - 4 days (the date of 4 days ago)

I already went through the PHP.net manual, but I do not understand how to achieve this.

I just want to display the dates from 1, 2, 3 or 4 days ago on my website...

October 22nd, 2009, 12:12 PM

IAmALlama

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strtotime() is probably the easiest. takes a string and tries to calculate in a timestamp what the string is saying.

PHP Code:


		
			
//this will get you a timestamp for each day.

$today = time();

$day1 = strtotime("-1 day");

$day2 = strtotime("-2 days");

$day3 = strtotime("-3 days");

$day4 = strtotime("-4 days");



//using the timestamp from above you can use date() to get out a date



echo date("F jS, Y",$day1).'<br />';

echo date("F jS, Y",$day2).'<br />';

echo date("F jS, Y",$day3).'<br />';

echo date("F jS, Y",$day4);

Comments on this post

HHawk agrees: Great, exactly what I was looking for!

October 23rd, 2009, 03:39 AM

HHawk

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Great, exactly what I was looking for.
Why does it always look so easy to pull of?!

Thnx once again!

//edit

One problem, now my months are in English and I want them to be in Dutch? That's why I was using strftime (nl_NL).

How can I display the months in Dutch with your example?

Last edited by HHawk : October 23rd, 2009 at 04:00 AM.

October 23rd, 2009, 01:21 PM

IAmALlama

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strftime has an opposite function strptime that takes a string formatted with strftime and the format string used in strftime and converts it to an array with all the time parts (day, month, year, hour...etc) which can be easily converted back to a timestamp with mktime(). However, strptime() is not implemented on windows yet so you would have to be using a *nix based OS. On windows, you would have to make your own function to get the date back. You can check out some of the user notes on the strptime manual page and there might be something that could work. Other than that, you can also do a simple string replace on the string to change the months to english months before using strtotime().

October 26th, 2009, 04:07 AM

HHawk

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Quote:

Originally Posted by IAmALlama

I am using a Plesk with *nix OS.

October 26th, 2009, 12:27 PM

IAmALlama

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well then you should be able to use strptime() with no problems. something like:

PHP Code:


		
			
//the format for use in strftime

$format = "%B %e, %G";



//get strftime

$fTime = strftime($format);



//display the before

echo "$fTime<hr>";



//convert to an array with the date parts.

$pTime = strptime($fTime, $format);



//display the array

echo "<pre>".print_r($pTime, true)."</pre><hr>";



//convert the date parts back to a timestamp

$timeStamp = mktime($pTime['tm_hour'],$pTime['tm_min'],$pTime['tm_sec'],$pTime['tm_mon'],$pTime['tm_mday'],$pTime['tm_year']);



//display the timestamp

echo "$timeStamp <hr>";



//now you can do all the strtotime conversions you want

$newTime = strtotime("-5 days", $timeStamp);



//make a new date format from strftime using the new timestamp

$newfTime = strftime($format, $newTime);



//display the new time

echo $newfTime;

I don't have a *nix station at work to test, but that should work. You could probably wrap most of that in a function where you pass the format, time string from the original strftime and the string input for strtotime (ie +1 day) and it returns the modified new strftime string.

October 26th, 2009, 04:31 PM

HHawk

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Quote:

Originally Posted by IAmALlama

well then you should be able to use strptime() with no problems. something like:

PHP Code:


		
			
//the format for use in strftime

$format = "%B %e, %G";



//get strftime

$fTime = strftime($format);



//display the before

echo "$fTime<hr>";



//convert to an array with the date parts.

$pTime = strptime($fTime, $format);



//display the array

echo "<pre>".print_r($pTime, true)."</pre><hr>";



//convert the date parts back to a timestamp

$timeStamp = mktime($pTime['tm_hour'],$pTime['tm_min'],$pTime['tm_sec'],$pTime['tm_mon'],$pTime['tm_mday'],$pTime['tm_year']);



//display the timestamp

echo "$timeStamp <hr>";



//now you can do all the strtotime conversions you want

$newTime = strtotime("-5 days", $timeStamp);



//make a new date format from strftime using the new timestamp

$newfTime = strftime($format, $newTime);



//display the new time

echo $newfTime;

Thnx man, I will give that a go.

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