How to generate random date between two dates using php?

Question

I am coding an application where i need to assign random date between two fixed timestamps

how i can achieve this using php i\'ve searched first but only found the a

Answer 1

An other solution where we can use date_format :

 /**
 * Method to generate random date between two dates
 * @param $sStartDate
 * @param $sEndDate
 * @param string $sFormat
 * @return bool|string
 */

function randomDate($sStartDate, $sEndDate, $sFormat = 'Y-m-d H:i:s') {
    // Convert the supplied date to timestamp
    $fMin = strtotime($sStartDate);
    $fMax = strtotime($sEndDate);
    // Generate a random number from the start and end dates
    $fVal = mt_rand($fMin, $fMax);
    // Convert back to the specified date format
    return date($sFormat, $fVal);
}

Source : https://gist.github.com/samcrosoft/6550473

You could use for example :

$date_random = randomDate('2018-07-09 00:00:00','2018-08-27 00:00:00');

Answer 2

You can just use a random number to determine a random date. Get a random number between 0 and number of days between the dates. Then just add that number to the first date.

For example, to get a date a random numbers days between now and 30 days out.

echo date('Y-m-d', strtotime( '+'.mt_rand(0,30).' days'));

Answer 3

PHP has the rand() function:

$int= rand(1262055681,1262055681);

It also has mt_rand(), which is generally purported to have better randomness in the results:

$int= mt_rand(1262055681,1262055681);

To turn a timestamp into a string, you can use date(), ie:

$string = date("Y-m-d H:i:s",$int);

Answer 4

Here's another example:

$datestart = strtotime('2009-12-10');//you can change it to your timestamp;
$dateend = strtotime('2009-12-31');//you can change it to your timestamp;

$daystep = 86400;

$datebetween = abs(($dateend - $datestart) / $daystep);

$randomday = rand(0, $datebetween);

echo "\$randomday: $randomday\n";

echo date("Y-m-d", $datestart + ($randomday * $daystep)) . "\n";

Answer 5

Simplest of all, this small function works for me I wrote it in a helper class datetime as a static method

/**
 * Return date between two dates
 *
 * @param String $startDate
 * @param String $endDate
 * @return String
 *
 * @author Kuldeep Dangi <kuldeepamy@gmail.com>
 */
public static function getRandomDateTime($startDate, $endDate)
{
    $randomTime = mt_rand(strtotime($startDate), strtotime($endDate));
    return date(self::DATETIME_FORMAT_MYSQL, $randomTime);

}

Answer 6

By using carbon and php rand between two dates

$startDate = Carbon::now();
$endDate   = Carbon::now()->subDays(7);

$randomDate = Carbon::createFromTimestamp(rand($endDate->timestamp, $startDate->timestamp))->format('Y-m-d');

OR

$randomDate = Carbon::now()->subDays(rand(0, 7))->format('Y-m-d');