I added my own little function to CI’s “Date” helper file that assists with quick formatting of date strings, particularly those returned from a db table. Feel free to use it, modify it, add your own format strings, whatever.
Simple usage: include the date helper file as you normally would, then pass a date to setDate() along with a format (currently ‘short’, ‘long,’ or ‘notime’):
$this->include->helper('date');
$date = "2009-06-15":
$shortdate = setDate($date, 'short'); # returns '06 / 15 / 2009 - 9:32AM'
$longdate = setDate($date, 'long'); # returns 'June 15, 2009 - 9:32AM'
$notime = setDate($date, 'notime'); # returns '06 / 15 / 2009'
Here’s the snippet:
/**
* More simplified date stuff
* by Bob Sawyer / Pixels and Code
*
* @access public
* @param string
* @param integer
* @return integer
*/
if ( ! function_exists('setDate'))
{
function setDate($datestr = '',$format = 'long')
{
if ($datestr == '')
return '--';
$time = strtotime($datestr);
switch ($format) {
case 'short': $fmt = 'm / d / Y - g:iA'; break;
case 'long': $fmt = 'F j, Y - g:iA'; break;
case 'notime': $fmt = 'm / d / Y'; break;
}
$newdate = date($fmt,$time);
return $newdate;
}
}