Add one day to a date in PHP

This article demonstrates how to add one day to a date in PHP.

1. Using `DateTime::modify()` function

The DateTime::modify() function alters the timestamp of a DateTime object by adding or subtracting according to the specified date/time format. To advance a date to the next day, you can use the relative date format "+1 day".

<?php

$date = new DateTime("2017/12/25 15:30:00");

$date->modify("+1 day");

$result = $date->format("l, d-M-y H:i:s");

var_dump($result); // string(27) "Tuesday, 26-Dec-17 15:30:00"

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If you prefer the procedural style functions, you can use the date_modify() function, which is an alias of DateTime::modify().

<?php

$date = new DateTime("2017/12/25 15:30:00");

date_modify($date, "+1 day");

$result = date_format($date, "l, d-M-y H:i:s");

var_dump($result); // string(27) "Tuesday, 26-Dec-17 15:30:00"

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You can easily extend the solution to add any given number of days to a date. Consider the following example, which creates an extension method for this simple task:

<?php

function addDays($date, $days, $format="l, d-M-y H:i:s") {

$date = new DateTime($date);

$date->modify("+$days days");

return $date->format($format);

}

$date = "2017/12/25 15:30:00";

$days = 10;

$result = addDays($date, $days);

var_dump($result); // "string(28) "Thursday, 04-Jan-18 15:30:00"

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2. Using `DateTime::add()` function

You can also modify a DateTime object with the DateTime::add() function, which adds the amount of days, months, years, hours, minutes, and seconds according to the specified DateInterval object. The DateInterval constructor expects a duration parameter for the interval specification. This format starts with P, which stands for period, and is followed by a duration period and a period designator. You can use the period designator D for adding or removing days, as specified by the duration period. Therefore, one day is P1D.

<?php

$date = new DateTime("2017/12/25 15:30:00");

$date = $date->add(new DateInterval("P1D"));

$result = $date->format("l, d-M-y H:i:s");

var_dump($result); // string(27) "Tuesday, 26-Dec-17 15:30:00"

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You may also use the procedural-style function date_add(), which is an alias of the object-oriented style function DateTime::add().

<?php

$date = date_create("2017/12/25 15:30:00");

$date = date_add($date, new DateInterval("P1D"));

$result = date_format($date, "l, d-M-y H:i:s");

var_dump($result); // string(27) "Tuesday, 26-Dec-17 15:30:00"

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You can even write your own utility method for adding any number of days to the given date.

<?php

function addDays($date, $days, $format="l, d-M-y H:i:s") {

$date = new DateTime($date);

$date = $date->add(new DateInterval("P{$days}D"));

return $date->format($format);

}

$date = "2017/12/25 15:30:00";

$days = 10;

$result = addDays($date, $days);

var_dump($result); // "string(28) "Thursday, 04-Jan-18 15:30:00"

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3. Using `DateTime` constructor

You can even use the DateTime constructor to add one day to a given date. The DateTime constructor returns a new DateTime object initialized from the specified date/time string. The idea is to use the English textual datetime description of "+1 day" to advance the given date by one. It can be used as shown below:

<?php

$str = "2017/12/25 15:30:00";

$dt = new DateTime("$str +1 day");

$result = $dt->format("l, d-M-y H:i:s");

var_dump($result); // string(27) "Tuesday, 26-Dec-17 15:30:00"

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Additionally, if you just need to add one day to the current date, you can directly pass the relative date format "+1 day" to DateTime constructor, as shown below:

<?php

$date = new DateTime("+1 day");

$result = $date->format("l, d-M-y H:i:s");

var_dump($result);

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4. Using `strtotime()` function

This can be easily done using the strtotime() function, which converts the given date string into a Unix timestamp. You can use the English textual datetime description of "+1 day" to advance the given date by one.

<?php

$str = "2017/12/25 15:30:00";

$result = date("l, d-M-y H:i:s", strtotime("$str +1 day"));

var_dump($result); // string(27) "Tuesday, 26-Dec-17 15:30:00"

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Here’s a generic version of the above code that creates a utility method to add any number of days to the given date.

<?php

function addDays($date, $days, $format="l, d-M-y H:i:s")

{

$date = strtotime("$date +$days day");

return date($format, $date);

}

$date = "2017/12/25 15:30:00";

$days = 10;

$result = addDays($date, $days);

var_dump($result); // "string(28) "Thursday, 04-Jan-18 15:30:00"

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Finally, if you just want to find tomorrow’s date, you can simply pass "+1 day" to the strtotime() function.

<?php

$timestamp = strtotime("+1 day");

$result = Date("l, d-M-y H:i:s", $timestamp);

var_dump($result);

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That’s all there is to adding one day to a date in PHP.

Add one day to a date in PHP

1. Using DateTime::modify() function

2. Using DateTime::add() function

3. Using DateTime constructor

4. Using strtotime() function

Share this:

1. Using `DateTime::modify()` function

2. Using `DateTime::add()` function

3. Using `DateTime` constructor

4. Using `strtotime()` function