title: PHP: date function to get month of the current date
body: <p>I want to be able to figure out the month of the current date variable. I'm ex vb.net and the way to do it there is just <code>date.Month</code>. How do I do this in PHP?</p>
  
  <p>Thanks,</p>
  
  <p>Jonesy</p>
  
  <p>I used <code>date_format($date, "m"); //01, 02..12</code></p>
  
  <p>This is what I wanted, question now is how do I compare this to an int since <code>$monthnumber = 01</code> just becomes <code>1</code></p>