How to represent time without date in PHP

Question

I'd like to represent time (standalone) in PHP without the date part. I've tried using strtotime and DateTime::createFromFormat but both add a date part to it. Laravel's carbon library descends from DateTime and also doesn't cater for this.

My use case is that of representing bus depart and arriving times from a station. The buses depart everyday at the same time so I don't want/need the date part of it.

Python has datetime.time and Java has java.time.LocalTime, is there a direct equivalent of this in PHP? Should I create a custom class for it?

Cheers

Answer 1

1. Create DateTime object and format this object to show only time:

   $date = new \DateTime("now");
   echo $date->format("H:i:s");
   

   or do the same thing in one line:

   echo (new \DateTime("now"))->format("H:i:s");
   

2. Use date function:

   echo date("H:i:s");
   

Answer 2

PHP doesn't have a direct equivalent to either Python datetime.time nor Java java.time.LocalTime. A Time value-object should be created for this case in a per-need basis.