You can indicate the format of your date/time string in the following way:
| Format character | Description | Example returned values | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day | d | Day of the month, 2 digits with leading zeros | 01 to 31 |
| D | A textual representation of a day, three letters | Mon through Sun | |
| j | Day of the month without leading zeros | 1 to 31 | |
| l (lowercase ‘L’) | A full textual representation of the day of the week | Sunday through Saturday | |
| N | ISO-8601 numeric representation of the day of the week | 1 (for Monday) through 7 (for Sunday) | |
| S | English ordinal suffix for the day of the month, 2 characters | st, nd, rd or th | |
| w | Numeric representation of the day of the week | 0 (for Sunday) through 6 (for Saturday) | |
| z | The day of the year (starting from 0) | 0 through 365 | |
| Week | W | ISO-8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday | Example: 42 (the 42nd week in the year) |
| Month | F | A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March | January through December |
| m | Numeric representation of a month, with leading zeros | 01 through 12 | |
| M | A short textual representation of a month, three letters | Jan through Dec | |
| n | Numeric representation of a month, without leading zeros | 1 through 12 | |
| t | Number of days in the given month | 28 through 31 | |
| Year | L | Whether it’s a leap year | 1 if it is a leap year, 0 otherwise. |
| o | ISO-8601 week-numbering year. This has the same value as Y, except that if the ISO week number (W) belongs to the previous or next year, that year is used instead. |
Examples: 1999 or 2003 | |
| Y | A full numeric representation of a year, 4 digits | Examples: 1999 or 2003 | |
| y | A two digit representation of a year | Examples: 99 or 03 | |
| Time | a | Lowercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | am or pm |
| A | Uppercase Ante meridiem and Post meridiem | AM or PM | |
| B | Swatch Internet time | 000 through 999 | |
| g | 12-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 1 through 12 | |
| G | 24-hour format of an hour without leading zeros | 0 through 23 | |
| h | 12-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 01 through 12 | |
| H | 24-hour format of an hour with leading zeros | 00 through 23 | |
| i | Minutes with leading zeros | 00 to 59 | |
| s | Seconds, with leading zeros | 00 through 59 | |
| u | Microseconds. | Example: 654321 | |
| Timezone | e | Timezone identifier | Examples: UTC, GMT, Atlantic/Azores |
| I (capital i) | Whether or not the date is in daylight saving time | 1 if Daylight Saving Time, 0 otherwise. | |
| O | Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) in hours | Example: +0200 | |
| P | Difference to Greenwich time (GMT) with colon between hours and minutes | Example: +02:00 | |
| T | Timezone abbreviation | Examples: EST, MDT … | |
| Z | Timezone offset in seconds. The offset for timezones west of UTC is always negative, and for those east of UTC is always positive. |
-43200 through 50400 | |
| Full Date/Time | c | ISO 8601 date | 2004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00 |
| r | RFC 2822 formatted date | Example: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200 | |
| U | Seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT) | 1497957607 |
Here you can see some examples of a date/time format and how is represented:
F j, Y, g:ia // May 16, 2017, 4:29pm m-d-y // 05-16-17 m/d/y // 05/16/17 j, n, Y // 16, 5, 2017 Ymd // 20170516 jS \d\a\y // 16th day D M j Y G:i:s // Tue May 16 2017 16:29:09 H:i:s // 16:29:09 Y-m-d H:i:s // 2017-05-16 16:29:09 (MySQL DATETIME format)