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$format is a string with how you want the date to be returned. I think you know that
$timestamp in a unix timestamp of the date you want. to return today's date you can leave off this parameter. you'll prolly want to use mktime() to make a timestamp to use here.
All this is in the php manual with plenty of examples. I suggest going there first before you ask it on a forum from now on. (exact page in manual: http://us4.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php)
The $timestamp is, of course, a UNIX timestamp representing the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch. $format is a string of characters - some of which are special, and applies that string to the timestamp. So, for date(), 'Y' stands for a 4 digit year. So, date('Y',time()) will give you the current year.
[php_man]date()[/php_man]
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.