Creating a function within functions.php to change the date

Question

I'm using the PODS WordPress Framework which is amazing.

I created a template with one of the fields publishing the date of an event which is done through a simple 'magic tag' like this

{@date_of_event}

This publishes the date in this format: September, 15th 2018

What I need to do is change the format of the date being published into a numeric version which I can do by passing the value into my own function.

That would be done like this:

{@start_date,MY_FUNCTION}

So, to do this I need to create a function in my functions.php file like this:

function MY_FUNCTION ($input) {
       return "New Input" . $input;
}

Now, the php time date format that I need is like this:

Y/m/d

So - my question - how do I insert this into the function above?

Thanks for all help and direction on this!

Answer 1

You can use the PHP's strtotime() and WordPress's date_i18n() functions:

function MY_FUNCTION( $input ) {
    // Removes commas so that we'll get the proper timestamp. Otherwise, the
    // strtotime() function would return FALSE.
    $input = str_replace( ',', '', $input );

    // Retrieve the UNIX timestamp of the date.
    $timestamp = @strtotime( $input );

    // Returns the date in *localized* format.
    return date_i18n( 'Y/m/d', $timestamp );
}

MY_FUNCTION( 'September, 15th 2018' ), for example, would give you 2018/09/15.

Answer 2

If you don't need the date in a different format somewhere else: it's far easier go into pods admin -> edit -> choose your pod / field

Go into Advance Field Options fill in your Choice into "Date format for display"