How to convert date to timestamp in PHP?

Question

How do I get timestamp from e.g. 22-09-2008?

Answer 1

Please be careful about time/zone if you set it to save dates in database, as I got an issue when I compared dates from mysql that converted to timestamp using strtotime. you must use exactly same time/zone before converting date to timestamp otherwise, strtotime() will use default server timezone.

Please see this example: https://3v4l.org/BRlmV

function getthistime($type, $modify = null) {
    $now = new DateTime(null, new DateTimeZone('Asia/Baghdad'));
    if($modify) {
        $now->modify($modify);
    }
    if(!isset($type) || $type == 'datetime') {
        return $now->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
    }
    if($type == 'time') {
        return $now->format('H:i:s');
    }
    if($type == 'timestamp') {
        return $now->getTimestamp();
    }
}
function timestampfromdate($date) {
    return DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', $date, new DateTimeZone('Asia/Baghdad'))->getTimestamp();
}

echo getthistime('timestamp')."--".
    timestampfromdate(getthistime('datetime'))."--".
    strtotime(getthistime('datetime'));

//getthistime('timestamp') == timestampfromdate(getthistime('datetime')) (true)
//getthistime('timestamp') == strtotime(getthistime('datetime')) (false)