How to use JDate/es

Introducción

JDate es una clase auxiliar, se extiende de la clase DateTime de PHP, permite a los desarrolladores manejar el formato de fechas de forma más eficiente. La clase permite a los desarrolladores dar formato legibles a cadenas fechas, interacción MySQL, cálculo timestamp de UNIX y también proporciona métodos auxiliares para trabajar con diferentes zonas horarias.

Using JDate

Creating a JDate Instance

All of the date helper methods require an instance of the JDate class. To begin, you must create one. A JDate object may be created in two ways. One is the typical native method of simply creating a new instance:

$date = new JDate(); // Creates a new JDate object equal to the current time.

You may also create an instance using the static method defined in JDate:

$date = JDate::getInstance(); // Alias of 'new JDate();'

There is no difference between these methods, as JDate::getInstance simply creates a new instance of JDate exactly like the first method shown.

Alternatively, you may also retrieve the current date (as a JDate object) from JApplication, by using:

$date = JFactory::getDate();

Arguments

The JDate constructor (and getInstance static method) accepts two optional parameters: A date string to format, and a timezone. Not passing a date string will create a JDate object with the current date and time, while not passing a timezone will allow the JDate object to use the default timezone set.

The first argument, if used, must be a string that can be parsed using php's native DateTime constructor. E.g:

$currentTime = new JDate('now'); // Current date and time
$tomorrowTime = new JDate('now +1 day'); // Current date and time, + 1 day.
$date = new JDate('2012-12-1 15:20:00'); // 3:20 PM, December 1st, 2012

Temporary example

JFactory::getDate() gets a JDate object and we then do the JDate toFormat function

JFactory::getDate()->toFormat('%a %d %b %Y - %H:%M')

In Joomla! CMS 3.3 API the function "toFormat" was changed to "format", so the example above should be:

JFactory::getDate()->format('%a %d %b %Y - %H:%M')