How do I use PHP to get the current year?

I want to put a copyright notice in the footer of a web site, but I think it's incredibly tacky for the year to be outdated.

How would I make the year update automatically with PHP 4 or PHP 5?

Solution 1:

You can use either date or strftime. In this case I'd say it doesn't matter as a year is a year, no matter what (unless there's a locale that formats the year differently?)

For example:

<?php echo date("Y"); ?>

On a side note, when formatting dates in PHP it matters when you want to format your date in a different locale than your default. If so, you have to use setlocale and strftime. According to the php manual on date:

To format dates in other languages, you should use the setlocale() and strftime() functions instead of date().

From this point of view, I think it would be best to use strftime as much as possible, if you even have a remote possibility of having to localize your application. If that's not an issue, pick the one you like best.

Solution 2:

<?php echo date("Y"); ?>

Solution 3:

My super lazy version of showing a copyright line, that automatically stays updated:

&copy; <?php 
$copyYear = 2008; 
$curYear = date('Y'); 
echo $copyYear . (($copyYear != $curYear) ? '-' . $curYear : '');
?> Me, Inc.

This year (2008), it will say:

© 2008 Me, Inc.

Next year, it will say:

© 2008-2009 Me, Inc.

and forever stay updated with the current year.

Or (PHP 5.3.0+) a compact way to do it using an anonymous function so you don't have variables leaking out and don't repeat code/constants:

&copy; 
<?php call_user_func(function($y){$c=date('Y');echo $y.(($y!=$c)?'-'.$c:'');}, 2008); ?> 
Me, Inc.

Solution 4:

With PHP heading in a more object-oriented direction, I'm surprised nobody here has referenced the built-in DateTime class:

$now = new DateTime();
$year = $now->format("Y");

or one-liner with class member access on instantiation (php>=5.4):

$year = (new DateTime)->format("Y");

Solution 5:

http://us2.php.net/date

echo date('Y');