PHP Manual
Date/Time Functions
Parse a time/date generated with strftime

strptime

(PHP 5 >= 5.1.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)

strptime — Parse a time/date generated with strftime()

Warning

This function has been DEPRECATED as of PHP 8.1.0. Relying on this function is highly discouraged.

Description

strptime(string $timestamp, string $format): array|false

strptime() returns an array with the timestamp parsed, or false on error.

Month and weekday names and other language dependent strings respect the current locale set with setlocale() (LC_TIME).

Parameters

timestamp (string)

The string to parse (e.g. returned from strftime()).

format (string)

The format used in timestamp (e.g. the same as used in strftime()). Note that some of the format options available to strftime() may not have any effect within strptime(); the exact subset that are supported will vary based on the operating system and C library in use.

For more information about the format options, read the strftime() page.

Return Values

Returns an array or false on failure.

**The following parameters are returned in the array**
parameters	Description
`"tm_sec"`	Seconds after the minute (0-61)
`"tm_min"`	Minutes after the hour (0-59)
`"tm_hour"`	Hour since midnight (0-23)
`"tm_mday"`	Day of the month (1-31)
`"tm_mon"`	Months since January (0-11)
`"tm_year"`	Years since 1900
`"tm_wday"`	Days since Sunday (0-6)
`"tm_yday"`	Days since January 1 (0-365)
`"unparsed"`	the `timestamp` part which was not recognized using the specified `format`

Changelog

Version	Description
8.1.0	This function has been deprecated. Use date_parse_from_format() instead (for locale-independent parsing), or IntlDateFormatter::parse() (for locale-dependent parsing)

Examples

Example #1 strptime() example


<?php
$format = '%d/%m/%Y %H:%M:%S';
$strf = strftime($format);

echo "$strf\n";

print_r(strptime($strf, $format));
?>

The above example will output something similar to:

03/10/2004 15:54:19

Array
(
    [tm_sec] => 19
    [tm_min] => 54
    [tm_hour] => 15
    [tm_mday] => 3
    [tm_mon] => 9
    [tm_year] => 104
    [tm_wday] => 0
    [tm_yday] => 276
    [unparsed] =>
)

Notes

Note: This function is not implemented on Windows platforms.

Note:
Internally, this function calls the strptime() function provided by the system's C library. This function can exhibit noticeably different behaviour across different operating systems. The use of date_parse_from_format(), which does not suffer from these issues, is recommended.

Note:
"tm_sec" includes any leap seconds (currently upto 2 a year). For more information on leap seconds, see the » Wikipedia article on leap seconds.