(PHP 5 >= 5.3.0, PHP 7)
DateTime::sub -- date_sub — Subtracts an amount of days, months, years, hours, minutes and seconds from a DateTime object
Object oriented style
Procedural style
Subtracts the specified DateInterval object from the specified DateTime object.
objectProcedural style only: A DateTime object returned by date_create(). The function modifies this object.
interval
A DateInterval object
Returns the DateTime object for method chaining or FALSE on failure.
Example #1 DateTime::sub() example
Object oriented style
<?php
$date = new DateTime('2000-01-20');
$date->sub(new DateInterval('P10D'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d') . "\n";
?>
Procedural style
<?php
$date = date_create('2000-01-20');
date_sub($date, date_interval_create_from_date_string('10 days'));
echo date_format($date, 'Y-m-d');
?>
The above examples will output:
2000-01-10
Example #2 Further DateTime::sub() examples
<?php
$date = new DateTime('2000-01-20');
$date->sub(new DateInterval('PT10H30S'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
$date = new DateTime('2000-01-20');
$date->sub(new DateInterval('P7Y5M4DT4H3M2S'));
echo $date->format('Y-m-d H:i:s') . "\n";
?>
The above example will output:
2000-01-19 13:59:30 1992-08-15 19:56:58
Example #3 Beware when subtracting months
<?php
$date = new DateTime('2001-04-30');
$interval = new DateInterval('P1M');
$date->sub($interval);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d') . "\n";
$date->sub($interval);
echo $date->format('Y-m-d') . "\n";
?>
The above example will output:
2001-03-30 2001-03-02
DateTime::modify() is an alternative when using PHP 5.2.