How do I Convert Date Format in PHP

This tutorial uses PHP strtotime() and date() functions to convert date time format. For example you have stored a date YYYY-MM-DD format in a variable and need to change this to MM-DD-YYYY format.

We can achive this by converting date first to seconds using strtotime() function. After that reconstruct date to any format using date() function. Below is few examples of conversion:

1. Change YYYY-MM-DD => MM-DD-YYYY

Here we have date yyyy-mm-dd (“2019-01-15”) format and converting it to mm-dd-yyyy (“01-15-2019”) format.

Output:

01-15-2019

2. Change YYYY-MM-DD => DD-MM-YYYY

Here we have date yyyy-mm-dd (“2019-01-15”) format and converting it to dd-mm-yyyy (“15-01-2019”) format.

Output:

15-01-2019

3. Change DD/MM/YYYY => YYYY-MM-DD

If you have slashes in date format like “15/01/2019” and need to convert / with hyphens (-). The following example will help you to convert DD/MM/YYYY (“15/01/2019”) to YYYY-MM-DD (2019-01-15).

Output:

2019-01-15