PHP Month to Chinese Conversion Tutorial: Step-by-Step Implementation with Example Code

M66 2025-09-19

Overview of PHP Month to Chinese Conversion

In web or application development, it is often necessary to display dates or times in Chinese, including months. In PHP, converting numeric months to Chinese is straightforward. This article explains the implementation step by step, from basic methods to advanced techniques, with complete code examples.

Creating a Month-to-Chinese Conversion Function

First, we can create a function to convert a numeric month to its corresponding Chinese month. Here is an example implementation:

function chineseMonth($month) {
    $chineseMonths = array(
        1 => 'January',
        2 => 'February',
        3 => 'March',
        4 => 'April',
        5 => 'May',
        6 => 'June',
        7 => 'July',
        8 => 'August',
        9 => 'September',
        10 => 'October',
        11 => 'November',
        12 => 'December'
    );

    return $chineseMonths[$month];
}

In this function, we define an array $chineseMonths containing all months from 1 to 12 in Chinese. The function parameter $month is the numeric month input, and it returns the corresponding Chinese month.

Calling the Function and Displaying the Result

After creating the function, you can call it and display the result as follows:

$month = 5; // Numeric month to convert
$chineseMonth = chineseMonth($month);
echo "Numeric month {$month} corresponds to Chinese month: {$chineseMonth}";

Running this code will output: “Numeric month 5 corresponds to Chinese month: May”.

Using Date Functions for Flexible Conversion

Besides the direct conversion method, you can also use PHP's built-in date() function to display dates in Chinese more flexibly:

$date = '2022-05-15'; // Date string
$chineseMonth = date('Y年n月j日', strtotime($date));
echo "The date {$date} in Chinese format is: {$chineseMonth}";

This outputs: “The date 2022-05-15 in Chinese format is: 2022年5月15日”. Using this approach, you can directly convert a date into Chinese format easily, which is convenient for daily development needs.

Conclusion

Using the methods above, you can easily achieve month-to-Chinese conversion in PHP. Whether using a custom function or combining it with date functions, you can flexibly display date information and improve user experience. This guide aims to help PHP developers efficiently handle date displays.

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