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.
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:Day of Month
dNumeric, with leading zeros01–31
jNumeric, without leading zeros1–31
SThe English suffix for the day of the monthst, nd or th in the 1st, 2nd or 15th.
Weekday
lFull name (lowercase ‘L’)Sunday – Saturday
DThree letter nameMon – Sun
Month
mNumeric, with leading zeros01–12
nNumeric, without leading zeros1–12
FTextual fullJanuary – December
MTextual three lettersJan – Dec
Year
YNumeric, 4 digitsEg., 1999, 2003
yNumeric, 2 digitsEg., 99, 03
Time
aLowercaseam, pm
AUppercaseAM, PM
gHour, 12-hour, without leading zeros1–12
hHour, 12-hour, with leading zeros01–12
GHour, 24-hour, without leading zeros0-23
HHour, 24-hour, with leading zeros00-23
iMinutes, with leading zeros00-59
sSeconds, with leading zeros00-59
TTimezone abbreviationEg., EST, MDT …
Full Date/Time
cISO 86012004-02-12T15:19:21+00:00
rThu, 21 Dec 2000 16:01:07 +0200
Examples
Here are some examples of date format and result output.F j, Y g:i a – November 6, 2010 12:50 am
F j, Y – November 6, 2010
F, Y – November, 2010
g:i a – 12:50 am
g:i:s a – 12:50:48 am
l, F jS, Y – Saturday, November 6th, 2010
M j, Y @ G:i – Nov 6, 2010 @ 0:50
Y/m/d \a\t g:i A – 2010/11/06 at 12:50 AM
Y/m/d \a\t g:ia – 2010/11/06 at 12:50am
Y/m/d g:i:s A – 2010/11/06 12:50:48 AM
Y/m/d – 2010/11/06
Combined with the_time() template tag, the code below in the template file:This entry was posted on <?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?> and is filed under <?php the_category(', ') ?>.
will be shown on your site as following:This entry was posted on Friday, September 24th, 2004 and is filed under WordPress and WordPress Tips.