Git is a distributed version control system DVCS designed for efficient source code management, suitable for both small and large projects. It allows multiple developers to work on a project simultaneously without overwriting changes, supporting collaborative work, continuous integration, and deployment. This Git and GitHub tutorial is designed for beginners to learn fundamentals and advanced concepts, including branching, pushing, merging conflicts, and essential Git commands. Prerequisites include familiarity with the command line interface CLI, a text editor, and basic programming concepts. Git was developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development and tracks changes, manages versions, and enables collaboration among developers. It provides a complete backup of project history in a repository. GitHub is a hosting service for Git repositories, facilitating project access, collaboration, and version control. The tutorial covers topics such as Git installation, repository creation, Git Bash usage, managing branches, resolving conflicts, and working with platforms like Bitbucket and GitHub. The text is a comprehensive guide to using Git and GitHub, covering a wide range of topics. It includes instructions on working directories, using submodules, writing good commit messages, deleting local repositories, and understanding Git workflows like Git Flow versus GitHub Flow. There are sections on packfiles, garbage collection, and the differences between concepts like HEAD, working tree, and index. Installation instructions for Git across various platforms Ubuntu, macOS, Windows, Raspberry Pi, Termux, etc. are provided, along with credential setup. The guide explains essential Git commands, their usage, and advanced topics like debugging, merging, rebasing, patch operations, hooks, subtree, filtering commit history, and handling merge conflicts. It also covers managing branches, syncing forks, searching errors, and differences between various Git operations e.g., push origin vs. push origin master, merging vs. rebasing. The text provides a comprehensive guide on using Git and GitHub. It covers creating repositories, adding code of conduct, forking and cloning projects, and adding various media files to a repository. The text explains how to push projects, handle authentication issues, solve common Git problems, and manage repositories. It discusses using different IDEs like VSCode, Android Studio, and PyCharm, for Git operations, including creating branches and pull requests. Additionally, it details deploying applications to platforms like Heroku and Firebase, publishing static websites on GitHub Pages, and collaborating on GitHub. Other topics include the use of Git with R and Eclipse, configuring OAuth apps, generating personal access tokens, and setting up GitLab repositories. The text covers various topics related to Git, GitHub, and other version control systems Key Pointers Git is a distributed version control system DVCS for source code management. Supports collaboration, continuous integration, and deployment. Suitable for both small and large projects. Developed by Linus Torvalds for Linux kernel development. Tracks changes, manages versions, and provides complete project history. GitHub is a hosting service for Git repositories. Tutorial covers Git and GitHub fundamentals and advanced concepts. Includes instructions on installation, repository creation, and Git Bash usage. Explains managing branches, resolving conflicts, and using platforms like Bitbucket and GitHub. Covers working directories, submodules, commit messages, and Git workflows. Details packfiles, garbage collection, and Git concepts HEAD, working tree, index. Provides Git installation instructions for various platforms. Explains essential Git commands and advanced topics debugging, merging, rebasing. Covers branch management, syncing forks, and differences between Git operations. Discusses using different IDEs for Git operations and deploying applications. Details using Git with R, Eclipse, and setting up GitLab repositories. Explains CI/CD processes and using GitHub Actions. Covers internal workings of Git and its decentralized model. Highlights differences between Git version control system and GitHub hosting platform.
In this tutorial, we will see how to get the date & time using the date() & time() function in PHP, we will also see the various formatting options available with these functions & understand their implementation through the examples.
Date and time are some of the most frequently used operations in PHP while executing SQL queries or designing a website etc. PHP serves us with predefined functions for these tasks. Some of the predefined functions in PHP for date and time are discussed below.
PHP date() Function: The PHP date() function converts timestamp to a more readable date and time format.
Why do we need the date() function?
The computer stores dates and times in a format called UNIX Timestamp, which measures time as a number of seconds since the beginning of the Unix epoch (midnight Greenwich Mean Time on January 1, 1970, i.e. January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT ). Since this is an impractical format for humans to read, PHP converts timestamp to a format that is readable and more understandable to humans.
Syntax:
date(format, timestamp)
Explanation:
The format parameter in the date() function specifies the format of returned date and time.
The timestamp is an optional parameter, if it is not included then the current date and time will be used.
Example: The below program explains the usage of the date() function in PHP.
<?php
echo "Today's date is :";
$today = date("d/m/Y");
echo $today;
?>
Output:
Today's date is : 25/01/2023
Formatting option available in date() function: The format parameter of the date() function is a string that can contain multiple characters allowing to generate the dates in various formats. Date-related formatting characters that are commonly used in the format string:
d: Represents day of the month; two digits with leading zeros (01 or 31).
D: Represents day of the week in the text as an abbreviation (Mon to Sun).
m: Represents month in numbers with leading zeros (01 or 12).
M: Represents month in text, abbreviated (Jan to Dec).
y: Represents year in two digits (08 or 14).
Y: Represents year in four digits (2008 or 2014).
The parts of the date can be separated by inserting other characters, like hyphens (-), dots (.), slashes (/), or spaces to add additional visual formatting.
Example: The below example explains the usage of the date() function in PHP.
<?php
echo "Today's date in various formats:" . "\n";
echo date("d/m/Y") . "\n";
echo date("d-m-Y") . "\n";
echo date("d.m.Y") . "\n";
echo date("d.M.Y/D");
?>
Output:
Today's date in various formats:
25/01/2023
25-01-2023
25.01.2023
25.Jan.2023/Wed
The following characters can be used along with the date() function to format the time string:
h: Represents hour in 12-hour format with leading zeros (01 to 12).
H: Represents hour in 24-hour format with leading zeros (00 to 23).
i: Represents minutes with leading zeros (00 to 59).
s: Represents seconds with leading zeros (00 to 59).
a: Represents lowercase antemeridian and post meridian (am or pm).
A: Represents uppercase antemeridian and post meridian (AM or PM).
Example: The below example explains the usage of the date() function in PHP.
<?php
echo date("h:i:s") . "\n";
echo date("M,d,Y h:i:s A") . "\n";
echo date("h:i a");
?>
Output:
07:15:17
Jan,25,2035 07:15:17 PM
07:15 pm
PHP time() Function: The time() function is used to get the current time as a Unix timestamp (the number of seconds since the beginning of the Unix epoch: January 1, 1970, 00:00:00 GMT).
The following characters can be used to format the time string:
h: Represents hour in 12-hour format with leading zeros (01 to 12).
H: Represents hour in 24-hour format with leading zeros (00 to 23).
i: Represents minutes with leading zeros (00 to 59).
s: Represents seconds with leading zeros (00 to 59).
a: Represents lowercase antemeridian and post meridian (am or pm).
A: Represents uppercase antemeridian and post meridian (AM or PM).
Example: The below example explains the usage of the time() function in PHP.
<?php
$timestamp = time();
echo($timestamp);
echo "\n";
echo(date("F d, Y h:i:s A", $timestamp));
?>
Output:
1674654528
January 25, 2023 07:15:57 PM
PHP mktime() Function: The mktime() function is used to create the timestamp for a specific date and time. If no date and time are provided, the timestamp for the current date and time is returned.
Syntax:
mktime(hour, minute, second, month, day, year)
Example: The below example explains the usage of the mktime() function in PHP.
<?php
echo mktime(19, 15, 59, 01, 25, 2023);
?>
Output:
1674654528
The above code creates a time stamp for 25th Jan 2023,19hrs 15mins 59secs.
PHP is a server-side scripting language designed specifically for web development. You can learn PHP from the ground up by following this PHP Tutorialand PHP Examples.