What is the purpose of using a timestamp in PHP programming?

Using a timestamp in PHP programming allows developers to track and record the date and time when certain events occur in their applications. This can be useful for logging, scheduling tasks, measuring time intervals, and various other time-related operations. PHP provides functions for working with timestamps, making it easy to manipulate and display date and time information in a standardized format.

// Get the current timestamp
$currentTimestamp = time();

// Convert a timestamp to a human-readable date
$timestamp = 1609459200; // January 1, 2021
$date = date('Y-m-d H:i:s', $timestamp);
echo $date;