$datetime->strtotime() method

Parse about any English textual datetime description into a Unix timestamp using PHP’s strtotime()

This function behaves the same as PHP’s version except that it optionally accepts an $options array and lets you specify the return value for empty or zeroed dates like 0000-00-00. If given a zero’d date then it returns null by default (rather than throwing an error as PHP8 does). As of 3.0.238+ this method also lets you optionally specify an input format should the given date string not be strtotime compatible.

Available since version 3.0.178.

Usage

// basic usage
$false = $datetime->strtotime(string $str);

// usage with all arguments
$false = $datetime->strtotime(string $str, $options = []);

Arguments

NameType(s)Description
strstring

Date/time string

options (optional)array, int

Options to modify behavior, or specify int for the baseTimestamp option, or string for inputFormat option.

  • emptyReturnValue (int|null|false): Value to return for empty or zero-only date strings (default=null)
  • baseTimestamp (int|null): The timestamp which is used as a base for the calculation of relative dates.
  • inputFormat (string): Optional date format that given $str is in, if not strtotime() compatible. (3.0.238+)
  • outputFormat (string): Optionally return value in this date format rather than unix timestamp (3.0.238+)

Return value

false int null


$datetime methods and properties

API reference based on ProcessWire core version 3.0.248

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