Welcome to the Cookbook

fromString( $date_string )

fromString takes a string and uses strtotime to convert it into a date object. If the string passed in is a number then it'll convert it into an integer, being the number of seconds since the Unix Epoch (January 1 1970 00:00:00 GMT). Passing in a string of "20081231" will create undesired results as it will covert it to the number of seconds from the Epoch, in this case "Fri, Aug 21st 1970, 06:07"

toQuarter( $date_string, $range = false )

toQuarter will return 1, 2, 3 or 4 depending on what quarter of the year the date falls in. If range is set to true, a two element array will be returned with start and end dates in the format "2008-03-31".

toUnix( $date_string )

toUnix is a wrapper for fromString.

toAtom( $date_string )

toAtom return a date string in the Atom format "2008-01-12T00:00:00Z"

toRSS( $date_string )

toRSS returns a date string in the RSS format "Sat, 12 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500"

nice( $date_string = null )

nice takes a date string and outputs it in the format "Tue, Jan 1st 2008, 19:25".

niceShort( $date_string = null )

niceShort takes a date string and outputs it in the format "Jan 1st 2008, 19:25". If the date object is today, the format will be "Today, 19:25". If the date object is yesterday, the format will be "Yesterday, 19:25".

daysAsSql( $begin, $end, $fieldName, $userOffset = NULL )

daysAsSql returns a string in the format "($field_name >= '2008-01-21 00:00:00') AND ($field_name <= '2008-01-25 23:59:59')". This is handy if you need to search for records between two dates inclusively.

dayAsSql( $date_string, $field_name )

dayAsSql creates a string in the same format as daysAsSql but only needs a single date object.

timeAgoInWords( $datetime_string, $options = array(), $backwards = null )

timeAgoInWords will take a datetime string (anything that is parsable by PHP's strtotime() function or MySQL's datetime format) and convert it into a friendly word format like, "3 weeks, 3 days ago". Passing in true for $backwards will specifically declare the time is set in the future, which uses the format "on 31/12/08".

Option	Description
format	a date format; default "on 31/12/08"
end	determines the cutoff point in which it no longer uses words and uses the date format instead; default "+1 month"

relativeTime( $date_string, $format = 'j/n/y' )

relativeTime is essentially an alias for timeAgoInWords.

gmt( $date_string = null )

gmt will return the date as an integer set to Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

format( $format = 'd-m-Y', $date_string)

format is a wrapper for the PHP date function.

Function	Format
nice	Tue, Jan 1st 2008, 19:25
niceShort	Jan 1st 2008, 19:25 Today, 19:25 Yesterday, 19:25
daysAsSql	($field_name >= '2008-01-21 00:00:00') AND ($field_name <= '2008-01-25 23:59:59')
dayAsSql	($field_name >= '2008-01-21 00:00:00') AND ($field_name <= '2008-01-21 23:59:59')
timeAgoInWords relativeTime	on 21/01/08 3 months, 3 weeks, 2 days ago 7 minutes ago 2 seconds ago
gmt	1200787200