the time() function returns a UNIX timestamp which is the number of seconds since the epoch in 1970.
I'm not clear on exactly what you want, but I'll explain the way I manage my dates:
I start out using the date() function. date(Y-m-d H:i:s) is the datetime format for MySQL. (Read up on the date() function here: http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php )
when you grab date(Y-m-d H:i:s) it will read something like 2002-03-07 23:10:14. using the split() function, you can convert this format to anything you like with the date() function again. For example, to change the format above, you would do something like
$todays_date = date(Y-m-d H:i:s);
list($hour,$minute,$second,$year,$month,$day) = split('[- :]', $todays_date);
$todays_date_formatted = date('F j, Y @ H:i:s', mktime($hour,$minute,$second,$month,$day,$year));
essentially converting the original date in MySQL datetime format to UNIX format for mktime(), just so you can slap it in date() again to format it. This is probably unneccessary and slightly complex, but it works.
