[php] Convert number to month name in PHP

I have this PHP code:

$monthNum = sprintf("%02s", $result["month"]);
$monthName = date("F", strtotime($monthNum));

echo $monthName;

But it's returning December rather than August.

$result["month"] is equal to 8, so the sprintf function is adding a 0 to make it 08.

If you have the month number, you can first create a date from it with a default date of 1st and default year of the current year, then extract the month name from the date created:

echo date("F", strtotime(date("Y") ."-". $i ."-01"))

This code assumes you have your month number stored in $i

$days = ['', 'Jan', 'Feb', 'Mar', 'Apr', 'Mai', 'Jun', 'Jul', 'Aug', 'Sep', 'Oct', 'Nov', 'Dec'];
$month = ( date('m') < 10 ) ? date('m')[1] : date('m');

That extracts the months.

I think using cal_info() is the easiest way to convert from number to string.

$monthNum = sprintf("%02s", $result["month"]); //Returns `08`
$monthName = cal_info(0); //Returns Gregorian (Western) calendar array
$monthName = $monthName[months][$monthNum];

echo $monthName; //Returns "August"

See the docs for cal_info()

I figured everyone looking for this answer was probably just trying to avoid writing out the whole if/else statements, so I wrote it out for you so you can copy/paste. The only caveat with this function is that it goes on the actual number of the month, not a 0-indexed number, so January = 1, not 0.

function getMonthString($m){
    if($m==1){
        return "January";
    }else if($m==2){
        return "February";
    }else if($m==3){
        return "March";
    }else if($m==4){
        return "April";
    }else if($m==5){
        return "May";
    }else if($m==6){
        return "June";
    }else if($m==7){
        return "July";
    }else if($m==8){
        return "August";
    }else if($m==9){
        return "September";
    }else if($m==10){
        return "October";
    }else if($m==11){
        return "November";
    }else if($m==12){
        return "December";
    }
}

Use:

$name = jdmonthname(gregoriantojd($monthNumber, 1, 1), CAL_MONTH_GREGORIAN_LONG);

This is how I did it

// sets Asia/Calcutta time zone
date_default_timezone_set("Asia/Calcutta");

//fetches current date and time
$date = date("Y-m-d H:i:s");

$dateArray = date_parse_from_format('Y/m/d', $date);
$month = DateTime::createFromFormat('!m', $dateArray['month'])->format('F');
$dateString = $dateArray['day'] . " " . $month  . " " . $dateArray['year'];

echo $dateString;

returns 30 June 2019

To do the conversion in respect of the current locale, you can use the strftime function:

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'fr_FR.UTF-8');                                              
$monthName = strftime('%B', mktime(0, 0, 0, $monthNumber));

date doesn't respect the locale, strftime does.

You need set fields with strtotime or mktime

echo date("F", strtotime('00-'.$result["month"].'-01'));

With mktime set only month. Try this one:

echo date("F", mktime(0, 0, 0, $result["month"], 1));

Use mktime():

<?php
 $monthNum = 5;
 $monthName = date("F", mktime(0, 0, 0, $monthNum, 10));
 echo $monthName; // Output: May
?>

See the PHP manual : http://php.net/mktime

Just because everyone is using strtotime() and date() functions, I will show DateTime example:

$dt = DateTime::createFromFormat('!m', $result['month']);
echo $dt->format('F');

There are many ways to print a month from the given number. Pick one suite for you.

1. date() function along with parameter 'F'

Code example:

$month_num = 10;
echo date("F", mktime(0, 0, 0, $month_num, 10)); //output: October

2. By creating php date object using createFromFormat()

Code Example

$dateObj   = DateTime::createFromFormat('!m', $monthNum);
echo "month name: ".$dateObj->format('F'); // Output: October

3. strtotime() function

echo date("F", strtotime('00-'.$monthNum.'-01')); // Output: October

4. mktime() function

echo date("F", mktime(null, null, null, $monthNum)); // Output: October

5. By using jdmonthname()

$jd=gregoriantojd($monthNum,10,2019);
echo jdmonthname($jd,0); // Output: Oct

$monthNum = 5;
$monthName = date("F", mktime(0, 0, 0, $monthNum, 10));

I found this on https://css-tricks.com/snippets/php/change-month-number-to-month-name/ and it worked perfectly.

this is trivially easy, why are so many people making such bad suggestions? @Bora was the closest, but this is the most robust

/***
 * returns the month in words for a given month number
 */
date("F", strtotime(date("Y")."-".$month."-01"));

this is the way to do it

If you just want an array of month names from the beginning of the year to the end e.g. to populate a drop-down select, I would just use the following;

for ($i = 0; $i < 12; ++$i) {
  $months[$m] = $m = date("F", strtotime("January +$i months"));
}

A simple tricks here you can use strtotime() function workable as per your need, a convert number to month name.

1.If you want a result in Jan, Feb and Mar Then try below one with the 'M' as a parameter inside the date.

$month=5;
$nmonth = date('M',strtotime("01-".$month."-".date("Y")));
echo $nmonth;

Output : May

/2. You can try with the 'F' instead of 'M' to get the full month name as an output January February March etc.

$month=1;
$nmonth = date('M',strtotime("01-".$month."-".date("Y")));
echo $nmonth;

Output : January

Am currently using the solution below to tackle the same issue:

//set locale, 
setlocale(LC_ALL,"US");

//set the date to be converted
$date = '2016-08-07';

//convert date to month name
$month_name =  ucfirst(strftime("%B", strtotime($date)));

echo $month_name;

To read more about set locale go to http://php.net/manual/en/function.setlocale.php

To learn more about strftime go to http://php.net/manual/en/function.strftime.php

Ucfirst() is used to capitalize the first letter in a string.

You can do it in just one line:

DateTime::createFromFormat('!m', $salary->month)->format('F'); //April

strtotime expects a standard date format, and passes back a timestamp.

You seem to be passing strtotime a single digit to output a date format from.

You should be using mktime which takes the date elements as parameters.

Your full code:

$monthNum = sprintf("%02s", $result["month"]);
$monthName = date("F", mktime(null, null, null, $monthNum));

echo $monthName;

However, the mktime function does not require a leading zero to the month number, so the first line is completely unnecessary, and $result["month"] can be passed straight into the function.

This can then all be combined into a single line, echoing the date inline.

Your refactored code:

echo date("F", mktime(null, null, null, $result["month"], 1));

...

adapt as required

$m='08';
$months = array (1=>'Jan',2=>'Feb',3=>'Mar',4=>'Apr',5=>'May',6=>'Jun',7=>'Jul',8=>'Aug',9=>'Sep',10=>'Oct',11=>'Nov',12=>'Dec');
echo $months[(int)$m];

This for all needs of date-time converting

 <?php
 $newDate = new DateTime('2019-03-27 03:41:41');
 echo $newDate->format('M d, Y, h:i:s a');
 ?>