What is the purpose of using the date('W') function in PHP and how can it be utilized to calculate the current week?

The date('W') function in PHP is used to retrieve the ISO-8601 week number of the current date. By utilizing this function, you can easily calculate the current week of the year. This can be useful for various applications that require week-based calculations or displays.

$currentWeek = date('W');
echo "The current week of the year is: " . $currentWeek;