How to get Current Timestamp from Carbon in Laravel 5

Question

I want to get current timestamp in laravel 5 and I have done this-

$current_time = Carbon\Carbon::now()->toDateTimeString();

I am getting eror- 'Carbon not found'-

What can I do?

Can anyone help, please?

Sedum

Answer 1

You can try this if you want date time string:

use Carbon\Carbon;
$current_date_time = Carbon::now()->toDateTimeString(); // Produces something like "2019-03-11 12:25:00"

If you want timestamp, you can try:

use Carbon\Carbon;
$current_timestamp = Carbon::now()->timestamp; // Produces something like 1552296328

See the official Carbon documentation here.

Allaallah

Answer 2

For Laravel 5.5 or above just use the built in helper

$timestamp = now();

If you want a unix timestamp, you can also try this:

$unix_timestamp = now()->timestamp;

Tightwad

That returns a unix timestamp. Just now() will return in the typical 2018-10-05 17:55:08 format. – Uniat

@futzlarson now() actually returns a Carbon object. It'll be rendered as a string if you output it in, say, a Blade template, but it's fundamentally a full, complex object. – Hulbig

True. For my purposes it's always rendered as a string. – Uniat

Answer 3

You need to add another \ before your carbon class to start in the root namespace.

$current_time = \Carbon\Carbon::now()->toDateTimeString();

Also, make sure Carbon is loaded in your composer.json.

Hysterectomy

How can I load carbon in composer? – Sedum

Normaly Laravel will add carbon automaticly in your composer.json file. But if you want to be sure, try installing it by typing composer require nesbot/carbon in your console in the root of your application. – Hysterectomy

Answer 4

Laravel 5.2 <= 5.5

    use Carbon\Carbon; // You need to import Carbon
    $current_time = Carbon::now()->toDayDateTimeString(); // Wed, May 17, 2017 10:42 PM
    $current_timestamp = Carbon::now()->timestamp; // Unix timestamp 1495062127

In addition, this is how to change datetime format for given date & time, in blade:

{{\Carbon\Carbon::parse($dateTime)->format('D, d M \'y, H:i')}}

Laravel 5.6 <

$current_timestamp = now()->timestamp;

Arapaima

Answer 5

With a \ before a Class declaration you are calling the root namespace:

$now = \Carbon\Carbon::now()->timestamp;

otherwise it looks for it at the current namespace declared at the beginning of the class. other solution is to use it:

use Carbon\Carbon
$now = Carbon::now()->timestamp;

you can even assign it an alias:

use Carbon\Carbon as Time;
$now = Time::now()->timestamp;

hope it helps.

Radiotelephony

Answer 6

It may be a little late, but you could use the helper function time() to get the current timestamp. I tried this function and it did the job, no need for classes :).

You can find this in the official documentation at https://laravel.com/docs/5.0/templates

Regards.

Anyplace

Answer 7

The most proper way to make timestamp of carbon is as following:

use Carbon\Carbon
$now = Carbon::now()->getTimestamp(); // timestamp (seconds)
$now = Carbon::now()->getTimestampMs(); // timestamp (milliseconds)

Works in Laravel 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 (latest at the moment of writing). Fluent, readable, you don't need to remember all formats of php date.

Cowpea

Answer 8

date_default_timezone_set('Australia/Melbourne');   
$time = date("Y-m-d H:i:s", time()); 

Ronnieronny

While this code may solve the question, including an explanation really helps to improve the quality of your post. Remember that you are answering the question for readers in the future, and those people might not know the reasons for your code suggestion. – Airdrop

please pay attention that this code not relevant for Laravel framwork, this code will work but not help for this issue, and as @Shree wrote, adding explanations will be good. – Munition