This page describes the different relative date/time formats that the strtotime(), DateTime and date_create() parser understands.
| Description | Format |
|---|---|
| dayname | 'sunday' | 'monday' | 'tuesday' | 'wednesday' | 'thursday' | 'friday' | 'saturday' | 'sun' | 'mon' | 'tue' | 'wed' | 'thu' | 'fri' | 'sat' | 'sun' |
| daytext | 'weekday' | 'weekdays' |
| number | [+-]?[0-9]+ |
| ordinal | 'first' | 'second' | 'third' | 'fourth' | 'fifth' | 'sixth' | 'seventh' | 'eighth' | 'ninth' | 'tenth' | 'eleventh' | 'twelfth' | 'next' | 'last' | 'previous' | 'this' |
| reltext | 'next' | 'last' | 'previous' | 'this' |
| space | [ \t]+ |
| unit | (('sec' | 'second' | 'min' | 'minute' | 'hour' | 'day' | 'fortnight' | 'forthnight' | 'month' | 'year') 's'?) | 'weeks' | daytext |
| Format | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 'yesterday' | Midnight of yesterday | "yesterday 14:00" |
| 'midnight' | The time is set to 00:00:00 | |
| 'today' | The time is set to 00:00:00 | |
| 'now' | Now - this is simply ignored | |
| 'noon' | The time is set to 12:00:00 | "yesterday noon" |
| 'tomorrow' | Midnight of tomorrow | |
| 'back of' hour | 15 minutes past the specified hour | "back of 7pm", "back of 15" |
| 'front of' hour | 15 minutes before the specified hour | "front of 5am", "front of 23" |
| 'first day' ' of'? | Sets the day of the first of the current month. This phrase is best used together with a month name following it. | "first day of January 2008" |
| 'last day' ' of'? | Sets the day to the last day of the current month. This phrase is best used together with a month name following it. | "last day of next month" |
| ordinal space dayname space 'of' | Calculates the x-th week day of the current month. | "first sat of July 2008" |
| 'last' space dayname space 'of' | Calculates the last week day of the current month. | "last sat of July 2008" |
| number space? (unit | 'week') | Handles relative time items where the value is a number. | "+5 weeks", "12 day", "-7 weekdays" |
| ordinal space unit | Handles relative time items where the value is text. | "fifth day", "second month" |
| 'ago' | Negates all the values of previously found relative time items. | "2 days ago", "8 days ago 14:00", "2 months 5 days ago", "2 months ago 5 days", "2 days ago ago" |
| dayname | Moves to the next day of this name. | "Monday" |
| reltext space 'week' | Handles the special format "weekday + last/this/next week". | "Monday next week" |
Nota:
Relative statements are always processed after non-relative statements. This makes "+1 week july 2008" and "july 2008 +1 week" equivalent.
Exceptions to this rule are: "yesterday", "midnight", "today", "noon" and "tomorrow". Note that "tomorrow 11:00" and "11:00 tomorrow" are different. Considering today's date of "July 23rd, 2008" the first one produces "2008-07-24 11:00" where as the second one produces "2008-07-24 00:00". The reason for this is that those five statements directly influence the current time.
Nota:
Observe the following remarks when the current day-of-week is the same as the day-of-week used in the date/time string. The current day-of-week could have been (re-)calculated by non-relative parts of the date/time string however.
- "dayname" does not advance to another day. (Example: "Wed July 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-23").
- "number dayname" does not advance to another day. (Example: "1 wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-23").
- "number week dayname" will first add the number of weeks, but does not advance to another day. In this case "number week" and "dayname" are two distinct blocks. (Example: "+1 week wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-30").
- "ordinal dayname" does advance to another day. (Example "first wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-30").
- "number week ordinal dayname" will first add the number of weeks, and then advances to another day. In this case "number week" and "ordinal dayname" are two distinct blocks. (Example: "+1 week first wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-08-06").
- "ordinal dayname 'of' " does not advance to another day. (Example: "first wednesday of july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-02" because the specific phrase with 'of' resets the day-of-month to '1' and the '23rd' is ignored here).
Also observe that the "of" in "ordinal space dayname space 'of' " and "'last' space dayname space 'of' " does something special.
- It sets the day-of-month to 1.
- "ordinal dayname 'of' " does not advance to another day. (Example: "first tuesday of july 2008" means "2008-07-01").
- "ordinal dayname " does advance to another day. (Example: "first tuesday july 2008" means "2008-07-08", see also point 4 in the list above).
- "'last' dayname 'of' " takes the last dayname of the current month. (Example: "last wed of july 2008" means "2008-07-30")
- "'last' dayname" takes the last dayname from the current day. (Example: "last wed july 2008" means "2008-06-25"; "july 2008" first sets the current date to "2008-07-01" and then "last wed" moves to the previous Wednesday which is "2008-06-25").
Nota:
Relative month values are calculated based on the length of months that they pass through. An example would be "+2 month 2011-11-30", which would produce "2012-01-30". This is due to November being 30 days in length, and December being 31 days in length, producing a total of 61 days.