PHP date(): minutes without leading zeros

Question

I'd like to know if there is a formatting letter for PHP's date() that allows me to print minutes without leading zeros, or whether I have to manually test for and remove leading zeros?

Answer 1

Use:

$minutes = intval(date('i')); 

Answer 2

For times with more information than just minutes:

ltrim() - Strip whitespace (or other characters) from the beginning of a string

ltrim(date('i:s'), 0); 

returns:

8:24