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<title>Relative Formats</title>
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<h2 class="title">Relative Formats</h2>
<p class="para">
This page describes the different relative date/time formats that the
<span class="function"><a href="function.strtotime.html" class="function">strtotime()</a></span>, <a href="class.datetime.html" class="classname">DateTime</a> and
<span class="function"><a href="function.date-create.html" class="function">date_create()</a></span> parser understands.
</p>
<table class="doctable table">
<caption><strong>Used Symbols</strong></caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Format</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr>
<td><em>dayname</em></td>
<td>'sunday' | 'monday' | 'tuesday' | 'wednesday' | 'thursday' |
'friday' | 'saturday' | 'sun' | 'mon' | 'tue' | 'wed' | 'thu' | 'fri' |
'sat' | 'sun'</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>daytext</em></td>
<td>'weekday' | 'weekdays'</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>number</em></td>
<td>[+-]?[0-9]+</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>ordinal</em></td>
<td>'first' | 'second' | 'third' | 'fourth' | 'fifth' | 'sixth' |
'seventh' | 'eighth' | 'ninth' | 'tenth' | 'eleventh' | 'twelfth' |
'next' | 'last' | 'previous' | 'this'</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>reltext</em></td>
<td>'next' | 'last' | 'previous' | 'this'</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>space</em></td>
<td>[ \t]+</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>unit</em></td>
<td>(('sec' | 'second' | 'min' | 'minute' | 'hour' | 'day' |
'fortnight' | 'forthnight' | 'month' | 'year') 's'?) | 'weeks' |
<em>daytext</em></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table class="doctable table">
<caption><strong>Day-based Notations</strong></caption>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Format</th>
<th>Description</th>
<th>Examples</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody class="tbody">
<tr>
<td>'yesterday'</td>
<td>Midnight of yesterday</td>
<td>"yesterday 14:00"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'midnight'</td>
<td>The time is set to 00:00:00</td>
<td class="empty"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'today'</td>
<td>The time is set to 00:00:00</td>
<td class="empty"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'now'</td>
<td>Now - this is simply ignored</td>
<td class="empty"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'noon'</td>
<td>The time is set to 12:00:00</td>
<td>"yesterday noon"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'tomorrow'</td>
<td>Midnight of tomorrow</td>
<td class="empty"> </td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'back of' <em>hour</em></td>
<td>15 minutes past the specified hour</td>
<td>"back of 7pm", "back of 15"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'front of' <em>hour</em></td>
<td>15 minutes before the specified hour</td>
<td>"front of 5am", "front of 23"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'first day' ' of'?</td>
<td>Sets the day of the first of the current month. This phrase is
best used together with a month name following it.</td>
<td>"first day of January 2008"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'last day' ' of'?</td>
<td>Sets the day to the last day of the current month. This phrase is
best used together with a month name following it.</td>
<td>"last day of next month"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>ordinal</em> <em>space</em> <em>dayname</em> <em>space</em> 'of'</td>
<td>Calculates the <em>x</em>-th week day of the current month.</td>
<td>"first sat of July 2008"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'last' <em>space</em> <em>dayname</em> <em>space</em> 'of'</td>
<td>Calculates the <em class="emphasis">last</em> week day of the current month.</td>
<td>"last sat of July 2008"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>number</em> <em>space</em>? (<em>unit</em> | 'week')</td>
<td>Handles relative time items where the value is a number.</td>
<td>"+5 weeks", "12 day", "-7 weekdays"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>ordinal</em> <em>space</em> <em>unit</em></td>
<td>Handles relative time items where the value is text.</td>
<td>"fifth day", "second month"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>'ago'</td>
<td>Negates all the values of previously found relative time items.</td>
<td>"2 days ago", "8 days ago 14:00", "2 months 5 days ago", "2 months ago 5 days", "2 days ago ago"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>dayname</em></td>
<td>Moves to the next day of this name.</td>
<td>"Monday"</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><em>reltext</em> <em>space</em> 'week'</td>
<td>Handles the special format "weekday + last/this/next week".</td>
<td>"Monday next week"</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
Relative statements are always processed <em class="emphasis">after</em>
non-relative statements. This makes "+1 week july 2008" and "july
2008 +1 week" equivalent.
</p>
<p class="para">
Exceptions to this rule are: "yesterday", "midnight", "today", "noon"
and "tomorrow". Note that "tomorrow 11:00" and "11:00 tomorrow"
are different. Considering today's date of "July 23rd, 2008" the
first one produces "2008-07-24 11:00" where as the second one
produces "2008-07-24 00:00". The reason for this is that those
five statements directly influence the current time.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
Observe the following remarks when the current day-of-week is the
same as the day-of-week used in the date/time string. The current
day-of-week could have been (re-)calculated by non-relative parts of
the date/time string however.
</p>
<ol type="1">
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>dayname</em>" does <em class="emphasis">not</em> advance to
another day. (Example: "Wed July 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-23").
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>number</em> <em>dayname</em>" does
<em class="emphasis">not</em> advance to another day. (Example: "1
wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-23").
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>number</em> week <em>dayname</em>" will
first add the number of weeks, but does <em class="emphasis">not</em>
advance to another day. In this case "<em>number</em>
week" and "<em>dayname</em>" are two distinct blocks.
(Example: "+1 week wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-30").
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>ordinal</em> <em>dayname</em>"
<em class="emphasis">does</em> advance to another day. (Example "first
wednesday july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-30").
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>number</em> week <em>ordinal</em>
<em>dayname</em>" will first add the number of
weeks, and then <em class="emphasis">advances</em> to another
day. In this case "<em>number</em> week" and
"<em>ordinal</em> <em>dayname</em>" are two
distinct blocks. (Example: "+1 week first wednesday july 23rd,
2008" means "2008-08-06").
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>ordinal</em> <em>dayname</em> 'of' "
does <em class="emphasis">not</em> advance to another day. (Example:
"first wednesday of july 23rd, 2008" means "2008-07-02" because
the specific phrase with 'of' resets the day-of-month to '1' and
the '23rd' is ignored here).
</span>
</li>
</ol>
<p class="para">
Also observe that the "of" in "<em>ordinal</em>
<em>space</em> <em>dayname</em>
<em>space</em> 'of' " and "'last' <em>space</em>
<em>dayname</em> <em>space</em> 'of' " does
something special.
</p>
<ol type="1">
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
It sets the day-of-month to 1.
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>ordinal</em> <em>dayname</em> 'of' " does
<em class="emphasis">not</em> advance to another day. (Example: "first
tuesday of july 2008" means "2008-07-01").
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"<em>ordinal</em> <em>dayname</em> "
<em class="emphasis">does</em> advance to another day. (Example: "first
tuesday july 2008" means "2008-07-08", see also point 4 in the
list above).
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"'last' <em>dayname</em> 'of' " takes the last
<em>dayname</em> of the current month. (Example: "last
wed of july 2008" means "2008-07-30")
</span>
</li>
<li class="listitem">
<span class="simpara">
"'last' <em>dayname</em>" takes the last
<em>dayname</em> from the current day. (Example: "last
wed july 2008" means "2008-06-25"; "july 2008" first sets the
current date to "2008-07-01" and then "last wed" moves to the
previous Wednesday which is "2008-06-25").
</span>
</li>
</ol>
</p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="note"><p><strong class="note">Note</strong>:
<p class="para">
Relative month values are calculated based on the length of months that
they pass through. An example would be "+2 month 2011-11-30", which would
produce "2012-01-30". This is due to November being 30 days in length, and
December being 31 days in length, producing a total of 61 days.
</p>
</p></blockquote>
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