Creating DateTime from timestamp in PHP < 5.3

Question

How do you create a DateTime from timestamp in versions less than < 5.3?

In 5.3 it would be:

$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('U', $timeStamp);

The DateTime constructor wants a string, but this didn't work for me

$date = new DateTime("@$timeStamp");

According to the manual, that should work. Have you tried `$date = new DateTime('@' . $timeStamp);` ? And by "didn't work", what do you mean? — Jonah, Dec 01 '10 at 22:45
Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'DateTime::__construct() [datetime.--construct]: Failed to parse time string (@) at position 0 (@): Unexpected character' — Yarin, Dec 01 '10 at 22:55
@Yarin: It's giving you that error because the timestamp is empty. Find out why. — Jonah, Dec 01 '10 at 23:15

score 46 · Answer 1 · edited Jun 19 '18 at 00:24

46

PHP 5 >= 5.3.0

$date = new DateTime();
$date->setTimestamp($timeStamp);

Edit: Added correct PHP version for setTimestamp

edited Jun 19 '18 at 00:24

adrum

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answered Mar 27 '12 at 20:22

Dawid Ohia

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Think this is PHP 5 >= 5.3 – Spencer Aug 01 '12 at 15:03
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This answer is incorect, setTimestamp() added in php 5.3 – Arkemlar Dec 29 '16 at 10:12

score 31 · Answer 2 · answered Dec 01 '10 at 23:09

31

Assuming you want the date and the time and not just the date as in the previous answer:

$dtStr = date("c", $timeStamp);
$date = new DateTime($dtStr);

Seems pretty silly to have to do that though.

answered Dec 01 '10 at 23:09

Barry Simpson

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This solution works, but unnecessarily spends time formatting the date string, then re-parsing. – Jonah Oct 13 '15 at 17:34

score 14 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 01 '10 at 23:17

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It's not working because your $timeStamp variable is empty. Try echoing the value of $timeStamp right before creating the DateTime and you'll see. If you run this:

new DateTime('@2345234');

You don't get an error. However, if you run:

new DateTime('@');

It produces the exact error you said it gives you. You'll need to do some debugging and find out why $timeStamp is empty.

answered Dec 01 '10 at 23:17

Jonah

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Be warned, that using `@` in the constructor will ignore the environment's current timezone and the timezone when supplied in the second argument., even when using `$dateTime->modify('@' . 1234)` use `setTimezone(date_default_timezone_get())` to change from the UTC timezone to the environment timezone. – Will B. May 08 '15 at 18:45
I had this same problem when I used '@' with an empty timestamp, thanks for this answer. The error message PHP gave was less than helpful, it implied the '@' was the problem. – thomasrutter Oct 13 '15 at 04:55

score 3 · Answer 4 · answered Dec 01 '10 at 22:57

3

The following works:

$dateString = date('Ymd', $timeStamp);
$date = new DateTime($dateString);

answered Dec 01 '10 at 22:57

Yarin

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Timestamp[1] is not just Ymd, it's number of seconds(micro seconds in some cases) since 1st Jan 1970 UTC. [1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time – Deepak Chaudhary Apr 22 '17 at 05:06
May be `$dateString = date('U', $timeStamp);` then?! – Pete May 08 '17 at 08:35

Creating DateTime from timestamp in PHP < 5.3

4 Answers4

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