Formatting Dates

PHP
1

I have a field named Born, in the date format. After my query, I display a value from the field…


 $Born = $row['Born'];
 echo $Born;

It displays 1955-01-07, which is exactly what’s in the database. However, I want to format it to display Jan. 7, 1955. So I checked the PHP Manual, and it looks like I’m supposed to do something like this…


 $Born = $row['Born'];
 $Born = date("F j, Y");
 echo $Born;

However, my solution displays August 11, 2013, which isn’t even in my database.

Can anyone tell me what I’m doing wrong? Thanks.

2

Hi Chavista,

The date function returns the current system date in the format you specify, unless you provide a timestamp as the second argument.

You can use PHP’s DateTime class to get the result you want:


$Born = new DateTime($row['Born']);
echo $Born->format("M. j, Y");
3

When you use the date() function, the current date & time are automatically supplied if you don’t specify a specific date/time.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

However, using the date() function based on the UNIX timestamp is a little out of date now. It’s better to use the DateTime class.

$Born = $row['Born'];
$BornDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d', $Born);
echo $BornDate->format('M j, Y');

Or, if you prefer the procedural code style instead of the object-oriented code style:

$Born = $row['Born'];
$BornDate= date_create_from_format('Y-m-d', $Born);
echo date_format($BornDate, 'M j, Y');

http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.createfromformat.php

4

That works great; thanks. :wink: