how do I subtract 24 hour from date time object in PHP

Question

I have the following code:

 $now = date("Y-m-d H:m:s"); $date = date("Y-m-d H:m:s", strtotime('-24 hours', $now));

However, now it gives me this error:

A non well formed numeric value encountered in...

why is this?

See the manual - strtotime expects a timestamp as the second value. (In your example, you could just omit it completely) — Pekka
– Pekka, Commented Jul 18, 2013 at 8:16
You might want to consideer day time saving borders: do you really want a swith from 10 AM to 11 AM (or 9 AM?). — Joop Eggen
– Joop Eggen, Commented Jul 18, 2013 at 8:19
...did anyone else catch that m is where i usually sits in the time portion? Every one of the answers copy pasted this oversight. Ha. — mickmackusa
– mickmackusa ♦, Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 1:43
@mickmackusa You are absolutely right. Minutes are formatted with i, m are months — Qlimax
– Qlimax, Commented May 24, 2017 at 10:12
Why have't you accepted an answer to this very basic and very well recived question? Doing so would help others. Btw, I think that @Joel has given the best answer. — Mawg
– Mawg, Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 13:46

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:26:38Z

66

$date = (new \DateTime())->modify('-24 hours');

or

$date = (new \DateTime())->modify('-1 day');

(The latter takes into account this comment as it is a valid point.)

Should work fine for you here. See http://PHP.net/datetime

$date will be an instance of DateTime, a real DateTime object.

edited May 23, 2017 at 12:26

CommunityBot

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answered Jul 18, 2013 at 8:17

vascowhite

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3 Comments

thedarklord47 Over a year ago

this answer modifies the original DateTime object in-place.

vascowhite Over a year ago

Yes, that's the way \DateTime works. If that isn't good for you, use \DateTimeImmutable instead.

thedarklord47 Over a year ago

ah thank you! didn't know DateTimeImmutable was a thing.

Joel Harkes · Accepted Answer · 2020-04-24 11:47:32Z

strtotime() expects a unix timestamp (which is number seconds since Jan 01 1970)

$date = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime('-24 hours', time())); ////time() is default so you do not need to specify.

i would suggest using the datetime library though, since it's a more object oriented approach.

$date = new DateTime(); //date & time of right now. (Like time()) $date->sub(new DateInterval('P1D')); //subtract period of 1 day

The advantage of this is that you can reuse the DateInterval:

$date = new DateTime(); //date & time of right now. (Like time()) $oneDayPeriod = new DateInterval('P1D'); //period of 1 day $date->sub($oneDayPeriod); $date->sub($oneDayPeriod); //2 days are subtracted. $date2 = new DateTime(); $date2->sub($oneDayPeriod); //can use the same period, multiple times.

Carbon (update 2020)

Most popular library for processing DateTimes in PHP is Carbon.

Here you would simply do:

$yesterday = Carbon::now()->subDay();

This is the only answer given which uses DateTime->sub(), whcih is the correct way to subtract from a DateTime. Upvote - this ought to have been the accepted answer.

Vijay Joseph · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-04 06:22:58Z

11

you can do this in many ways...

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s',strtotime('-24 hours')); // "i" for minutes with leading zeros

OR

echo date('Y-m-d H:i:s',strtotime('last day')); // 24 hours (1 day)

Output

2013-07-17 10:07:29

edited Jul 4, 2017 at 6:22

Vijay Joseph

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answered Jul 18, 2013 at 8:35

Sumit Bijvani

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1 Comment

Robert Saylor Over a year ago

The big difference does your application expect a string or an object. If string then the string way is fine but if object then you have to use DateTime. While the output might look the same the data type is not.

Sreedhu Madhu · Accepted Answer · 2019-03-16 17:51:45Z

Simplest way to sub or add time,

<?php **#Subtract 24 hours** $dtSub = new DateTime('- 24 hours'); var_dump($dtSub->format('Y-m-d H:m:s')); **#Add 24 hours** $dtAdd = new DateTime('24 hours'); var_dump($dtAdd->format('Y-m-d H:m:s'));die; ?>

insertusernamehere · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 08:20:18Z

3

This may be helpful for you:

//calculate like this $date = date("Y-m-d H:m:s", (time()-(60*60*24))); //check the date echo $date;

edited Jul 18, 2013 at 8:20

insertusernamehere

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answered Jul 18, 2013 at 8:19

Sundar

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1 Comment

mickmackusa Over a year ago

Downvoted for unreliability: sandbox.onlinephpfunctions.com/code/…

steven · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 08:18:47Z

2

this should work, too

$date = date("Y-m-d H:m:s", strtotime('-24 hours'));

answered Jul 18, 2013 at 8:18

steven

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Comments

Dipen Soni · Accepted Answer · 2017-09-12 11:11:46Z

$now = date("Y-m-d H:i:s"); $date = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime('-24 hours', strtotime($now)));

Add "strtotime" before $now, and Y-m-d H:m:s replace with Y-m-d H:i:s

Amal · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-18 08:34:23Z

You can simply use time() to get the current timestamp.

$date = date("Y-m-d H:m:s", strtotime('-24 hours', time()));

pawan sen · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-11 11:38:53Z

In same code use strtotime() its working.

$now = date("Y-m-d H:i:s"); $date = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", strtotime('-2 hours', strtotime($now)));

Pranav Pandey · Accepted Answer · 2022-10-14 10:36:05Z

1

Try this :

$now = time(); $date = date("Y-m-d H:m:s", strtotime('-24 hours', $now));

edited Oct 14, 2022 at 10:36

answered Oct 14, 2022 at 10:34

Pranav Pandey

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Comments

Mohamed Salah · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-09 16:39:33Z

all you have to do is to alter your code to be

$now = strtotime(date("Y-m-d H:m:s")); $date = date("Y-m-d H:m:s", strtotime('-24 hours', $now));

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