Certain WordPress tag functions are used to display or return date and time information; the_date() and the_time() are examples of this. Some of these functions accept a parameter called a format string that allows you to determine how the date is going to be displayed. The format string is a template in which various parts of the date are combined (using "format characters") to generate a date in the format specified.

For example, the format string:

l, F j, Y

creates a date that look like this:

Friday, September 24, 2004

Here is what each format character in the string above represents:

• l = Full name for day of the week (lower-case L).
• F = Full name for the month.
• j = The day of the month.
• S = The English suffix for the day of the month (e.g st, nd or th in the 1st, 2nd or 15th.)
• Y = The year in 4 digits. (lower-case y gives the year's last 2 digits)

(Commas are read literally.)

WordPress is written in the programming language PHP. The date formatting functions in WordPress use PHP's built-in date formatting functions. You can use the table of date format characters on the PHP website as a reference for building date format strings for use in WordPress. Here is a table of some of the more useful items found there:

This entry was posted on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> and is filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 24, 2004 and is filed under WordPress and WordPress Tips.

Localization

To localize dates, use the date_i18n() function.