What are some best practices for efficiently extracting and manipulating dates and times in PHP?

When working with dates and times in PHP, it is important to use the built-in DateTime class for efficient extraction and manipulation. This class provides a wide range of methods for working with dates and times, including formatting, comparison, and arithmetic operations. By using the DateTime class, you can ensure accurate and reliable handling of date and time data in your PHP applications.

// Create a new DateTime object with the current date and time
$now = new DateTime();

// Format the date and time in a specific format
$formattedDate = $now->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

// Add a specific number of days to the current date
$now->modify('+1 day');

// Get the timestamp of the DateTime object
$timestamp = $now->getTimestamp();