PHP | date_create_immutable_from_format() Function

The date_create_immutable_from_format() function is an inbuilt function in PHP which is used to parse a time string according to the specified format.

Syntax:

• Object oriented style: 

DateTimeImmutable static DateTime::createFromFormat( string $format,
                                      string $time, DateTimeZone $timezone )

• Procedural style: 

DateTimeImmutable date_create_from_format( string $format, 
                                      string $time, DateTimeZone $timezone )

Parameters: This function uses three parameters as mentioned above and described below:  

• $format: This parameter holds the DateTime format in string.
• $time: This parameter holds the time in string format.
• $timezone: This parameter holds the DateTimeZone object.

Return Value: This function returns a new DateTimeImmutable object representing the date and time specified by the time string, which was formatted in the given format.

Characters and its description:

Format character	Description	Example returned values
j	Day of the month without leading zeros	1 to 31
d	Day of the month with leading zeros	01 to 31
m	Numeric representation of the month	01 to 12
M	Short textual representation of the month	Jan to Dec
Y	Representation of a year	1989, 2017

The format string can be a combination of any of the format characters in any order but we would have to provide the input date-time string in the same order.

Below programs illustrate the date_create_immutable_from_format() function in PHP:

Program 1:

PHP

<?php

// Use date_create_from_format() function
// to create a date format
$date = date_create_from_format('j-M-Y', '03-oct-2019');

// Display the date
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d');

?>

Output:

2019-10-03

Program 2:

PHP

<?php

// Use date_create_from_format() function
// to create a date format
$date = date_create_from_format('d-M-Y', '03-oct-2019');

// Display the date
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-j');

?>

Output:

2019-10-3

Program 3:

PHP

<?php

// Use DateTime::createFromFormat() function
// to create a date object
$date = DateTime::createFromFormat('j-M-Y', '03-oct-2019');

// Display the date
echo $date->format('Y-m-d');

?>

Output:

2019-10-03

Reference: https://www.php.net/manual/en/datetimeimmutable.createfromformat.php