How to convert string to timestamp in php

With the continuous development of the Internet, website development has become more and more common. In the process of website development, timestamps are often used, such as recording user registration time, article publishing time, etc. In PHP, string conversion timestamp is also a frequently used operation. Next, let's take a detailed look at the method and application of PHP string conversion timestamp.

1. The concept of timestamp in PHP

A timestamp refers to the number of seconds from a certain point in time to 00:00:00 on January 1, 1970. In PHP, timestamps are often used to represent time. In the actual development process, when we use date and time, we often need to convert between time and string.

2. Timestamp operations in PHP

In PHP, we can use the built-in function time() to get the timestamp of the current time. For example:

$timestamp = time();
echo $timestamp;

In actual development, we not only need to obtain the timestamp of the current time, but also need to convert the string into a timestamp. At this time, we can use the strtotime() function to implement, for example:

$timeStr = '2020-06-01 08:00:00';
$timestamp = strtotime($timeStr);
echo $timestamp;

The above code converts the time string '2020-06-01 08:00:00' into a timestamp, and outputs the timestamp value.

3. PHP timestamp conversion to date and time string

In addition to converting strings to timestamps, we often need to convert timestamps to date and time characters string. At this time, we can use the date() function to achieve this. For example:

$timestamp = 1598489345;
$timeStr = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $timestamp);
echo $timeStr;

The above code converts the timestamp into a datetime string and outputs the value of the string.

4. Things to note when converting PHP strings to timestamps

When using the strtotime() function to convert strings to timestamps, there are some things you need to pay attention to. Matters needing attention:

1. The format of the string must conform to the format supported by the strtotime() function, otherwise false will be returned.
2. When converting a string into a timestamp, the default time zone is the system time zone. If you need to specify a time zone, you can use the date_default_timezone_set() function to set the time zone.
3. In some cases, PHP's timestamp accuracy cannot meet the requirements. At this point, you can use the microtime() function to obtain a higher-precision timestamp.

5. Summary

Time stamp is a very common concept in PHP. In actual development work, we can convert timestamps into strings, or strings into timestamps. Using these conversion functions, we can easily process and compare times and dates. Of course, when using these functions, we also need to pay attention to their usage and some details.

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