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How to make a PHP calendar Posted in PHP Tutorials | 90 Comments

In this tutorial you will learn how to build your own web based calendar using PHP. This calendar is made from two parts. On top there are the links to the previous and the next month, and below them is the calendar itself. It will show the selected month name with the year following and the days of the month bellow in a table view. You will need a good PHP editor to help you with your development or if you are experienced enough you can use a plain text editing software such as Notepad.

At the begining we have to decide how we are going to pass our parameters. We can use either 'hidden' input fields in out html code or pass them in the URL. In this tutorial we will use the second approach. We are going to need two parameters - one for the "month" and one for the "year". We will also need an array with month names:


<?php
$monthNames = Array("January", "February", "March", "April", "May", "June", "July",
"August", "September", "October", "November", "December");
?>

First we need to check if we have set up our parameters already. If we have not, we set them to the current month and year. (For detailed explanation of date() function please refer to PHP Manual ).
<?php
if (!isset($_REQUEST["month"])) $_REQUEST["month"] = date("n");
if (!isset($_REQUEST["year"])) $_REQUEST["year"] = date("Y");
?>

Lets also set the variables that we are going to use in our calandar:
<?php
$cMonth = $_REQUEST["month"];
$cYear = $_REQUEST["year"];

$prev_year = $cYear;
$next_year = $cYear;
$prev_month = $cMonth-1;
$next_month = $cMonth+1;

if ($prev_month == 0 ) {
$prev_month = 12;
$prev_year = $cYear - 1;
}
if ($next_month == 13 ) {
$next_month = 1;
$next_year = $cYear + 1;
}
?>

$cMonth and $cYear are used for the current month and year displayed on the calendar. For the "Previous" and "Next" links we will need the coresponding parameters. We set $prev_year and $next_year to the current one. Later we may have to change this but for now it is OK. We also have to set parameters for the next and previous months by adding and subtracting 1. Now is the catch. We have to check if our parameter has not gone over or down the limit. Since there are 12 months in a year if our parameter goes to 13 then it means that another year has passed by and we have to set our "month" parameter back to 1 ( January ) and add 1 to our "year" parameter. The other way around is when we go back in time and our "month" parameter goes to 0. Then we have to decrease our "year" parameter by 1 and set the month paramether to 12 ( December ). Now as we set our links for previous and next months we turn to how to build the actual calendar.
We create a table that will hold our calendar and add the links in one row. Then we add a table in a new row that will hold the days. We also include the month name and the year in the first on the new table. But because arrays are zero based, we need to subtract one from the "month" parameter value to get the correct name.
<table width="200">
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="50%" align="left">  <a href="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] . "?month=". $prev_month . "&year=" . $prev_year; ?>" style="color:#FFFFFF">Previous</a></td>
<td width="50%" align="right"><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] . "?month=". $next_month . "&year=" . $next_year; ?>" style="color:#FFFFFF">Next</a>  </td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
<tr align="center">
<td colspan="7" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong><?php echo $monthNames[$cMonth-1].' '.$cYear; ?></strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>S</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>M</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>T</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>W</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>T</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>F</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>S</strong></td>
</tr>

Now we have to set the proper dates for our calendar. We have to make integer representation of the date so we can easily operate with it. Then we get the number of days of the selected month and the number representation (0 for Sunday through 6 for Saturday) of the first day of the month. All of these functions are fully explained in PHP Manual. Our loop that is going to print the dates starts at 0, because the days of the week start from 0 (Sunday). It has to loop through the number of days plus the offset of the first day of the month. We have to print new row for each week. We check this by modulus of the number of days in one week 7. If it equals 0 then it is the begining of the week and we print open row tag <tr> and if it is the end of the week 6 we print close tag for this week </tr>. All we need to do is to check if the day that we print is before $startday. In this case we print empty tag. Otherwise we have to print the date. We make it by subtracting the $startday. we have to add one because we don't want our dates to start from 0.
<?php 
$timestamp = mktime(0,0,0,$cMonth,1,$cYear);
$maxday = date("t",$timestamp);
$thismonth = getdate ($timestamp);
$startday = $thismonth['wday'];
for ($i=0; $i<($maxday+$startday); $i++) {
if(($i % 7) == 0 ) echo "<tr>n";
if($i < $startday) echo "<td></td>n";
else echo "<td align='center' valign='middle' height='20px'>". ($i - $startday + 1) . "</td>n";
if(($i % 7) == 6 ) echo "</tr>n";
}
?>

Now we add just the finishing touches of the html and we have finished the calendar.
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>

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90 Replies to "How to make a PHP calendar"

sudipta saha May 22, 2013 at 9:39 am | Reply

0

<table width="200">
<tr align="center">
<td bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="50%" align="left"> <a href="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] . "?month=". $prev_month . "&year=" . $prev_year; ?>" style="color:#FFFFFF">Previous</a></td>
<td width="50%" align="right"><a href="<?php echo $_SERVER["PHP_SELF"] . "?month=". $next_month . "&year=" . $next_year; ?>" style="color:#FFFFFF">Next</a> </td>
</tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center">
<table width="100%" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2">
<tr align="center">
<td colspan="7" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong><?php echo $monthNames[$cMonth-1].' '.$cYear; ?></strong></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>S</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>M</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>T</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>W</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>T</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>F</strong></td>
<td align="center" bgcolor="#999999" style="color:#FFFFFF"><strong>S</strong></td>
</tr>
cedrick May 18, 2013 at 3:34 am | Reply

0

i like your approach
Bob Jensen April 19, 2013 at 4:05 am | Reply

0

This was a great example for me to use in learning PHP. I learned a lot by implementing and then hacking the code presented above. Thanks.

That part that computes the previous month and year could be condensed, but maybe it becomes less readable.


$prev_month = (($cMonth+10)%12)+1;
$next_month = ($cMonth%12)+1;
$prev_year = ($prev_month == 12) ? ($cYear - 1) : $cYear;
$next_year = ($next_month == 1) ? ($cYear + 1) : $cYear;
Bongani G. Ndlovu April 18, 2013 at 4:09 am | Reply

0

Thanks a lot, you just answered my question of months... I don't think I was gonna be able to do it, cause half of the elements you used, I avoid using... Thinking they don't have use... Thanks
jdgremsjr April 16, 2013 at 9:18 am | Reply

0

1
Jimmy March 26, 2013 at 4:12 am | Reply

+1

after create php calendar how to sync this calendar with google calendar!! thanks!
lrsn March 22, 2013 at 2:31 pm | Reply

+1

I would like to have all sundays colored as red, could anyone help me with that ? :D
James April 16, 2013 at 7:29 am

0

This worked for me!

else
{
echo (($i % 7) == 6)
? "<td align='center' valign='middle' height='20px' style='background:#f00'>". ($i - $startday + 1) . "</td>"
: "<td align='center' valign='middle' height='20px'>". ($i - $startday + 1) . "</td>";
}


I would suggest using a css class instead of using style.
James April 16, 2013 at 7:29 am

0

This worked for me!

else
{
echo (($i % 7) == 6)
? "<td align='center' valign='middle' height='20px' style='background:#f00'>". ($i - $startday + 1) . "</td>"
: "<td align='center' valign='middle' height='20px'>". ($i - $startday + 1) . "</td>";
}


I would suggest using a css class instead of using style.
James April 16, 2013 at 7:32 am

0

I forgot to mention, use that else statement instead of the one in the for loop
Manish February 25, 2013 at 9:47 am | Reply

+2

Hi All,

I want to modify this calendar and want to display 3 months dates at a time. Plz help.

Thanks
mohd faizan February 17, 2013 at 12:41 am | Reply

+1

its very easy to creat calender in php very nice and thanks to help me create claender
Josh February 13, 2013 at 1:19 pm | Reply

+2

Hi,


to get rid of all the n's between the words "previous" and "next" go down to the bottom of the script and you will see the last php script part. Inside the 'for' function, you will see some random n's at the end of the </td> tags. Just simply get rid of those n's and they will go. It also makes your calendar look better too.
robert March 12, 2013 at 6:02 am

+4

those "n" were meant to be "\n" but he forgot the "\" instead of removing them just add the slash. that makes a line break in the source code. it keeps the source clean and doesn't appear in the calendar at all.


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