Convert RSS pubDate to a timestamp

Question

How to convert a date string Mon, 24 May 2010 17:54:00 GMT from RSS feed to a timestamp in PHP ?

Answer 1

You can use the built-in function strtotime(). It takes a date string as its first argument and returns a Unix timestamp.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.strtotime.php

Answer 2

Try This:

$pubDate = $item->pubDate;
$pubDate = strftime("%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S", strtotime($pubDate));

Answer 3

strtotime does not work with different timezones.

I have just written this function to convert RSS pubDates to timestamps which does take into account the different timezones:

function rsstotime($rss_time) {
    $day       = substr($rss_time, 5, 2);
    $month     = substr($rss_time, 8, 3);
    $month     = date('m', strtotime("$month 1 2011"));
    $year      = substr($rss_time, 12, 4);
    $hour      = substr($rss_time, 17, 2);
    $min       = substr($rss_time, 20, 2);
    $second    = substr($rss_time, 23, 2);
    $timezone  = substr($rss_time, 26);

    $timestamp = mktime($hour, $min, $second, $month, $day, $year);

    date_default_timezone_set('UTC');

    if(is_numeric($timezone)) {
        $hours_mod    = $mins_mod = 0;
        $modifier     = substr($timezone, 0, 1);
        $hours_mod    = (int) substr($timezone, 1, 2);
        $mins_mod     = (int) substr($timezone, 3, 2);
        $hour_label   = $hours_mod > 1 ? 'hours' : 'hour';
        $strtotimearg = $modifier . $hours_mod . ' ' . $hour_label;
        if($mins_mod) {
            $mins_label = $mins_mod > 1 ? 'minutes' : 'minute';
            $strtotimearg .= ' ' . $mins_mod . ' ' . $mins_label;
        }
        $timestamp = strtotime($strtotimearg, $timestamp);
    }

    return $timestamp;
}

Answer 4

The rsstotime() function did not work properly if the pubDate in rss feed had timezone other than +0000. The problem was with the $modifier, it had to be reversed. To fix that two lines had to be added, so the line:

$modifier = substr($timezone, 0, 1); 

became:

$modifier = substr($timezone, 0, 1);        
if($modifier == "+"){ $modifier = "-"; } else
if($modifier == "-"){ $modifier = "+"; }

Just to clarify the modification - for example if the pubDate was Wed, 22 May 2013 17:09:36 +0200 then the row

$timestamp = strtotime($strtotimearg, $timestamp

offsetted the time by two hours not resetted it to +0000 timezone as expected.

The Wed, 22 May 2013 17:09:36 +0200 shows that the time presented here is in the timezone GMT +2.

The code did not work properly and added extra two hours to the time, so the time became Wed, 22 May 2013 19:09:36 +0000, instead Wed, 22 May 2013 15:09:36 +0000 as it should have been.

Answer 5

function pubdatetotime($pubDate) {

$months = array('Jan' => '01', 'Feb' => '02', 'Mar' => '03', 
'Apr' => '04', 'May' => '05', 'Jun' => '06', 
'Jul' => '07', 'Aug' => '08', 'Sep' => '09', 
'Oct' => '10', 'Nov' => '11', 'Dec' => '12');

$date = substr($pubDate, 5,11);
$year = substr($date, 7,4); 
$month = substr($date, 3,3);
$d =  substr($date, 0,2);

$time = substr($pubDate, 17,8);

return $year."-".$months[$month]."-".$d." ".$time;  
}

Try this function