What is an alternative to strftime?
Solved
emrh Posted messages 439 Status Member -
Hello,
I need to display the date with the day's name in French... I found this that works very well:
setlocale(LC_TIME, 'fr_FR.utf8','fra'); $aujourdhui = ucwords(strftime('%A %d %B %Y')); Aujourd'hui : <?php echo $aujourdhui;?> Result: Today: Sunday, July 17, 2022
However, I just read on PHP.net regarding strftime: "This function is OBSOLETE as of PHP 8.1.0. It is strongly recommended to avoid them."
What would be the alternative to this instruction to get exactly the same result?
I've tried a lot of things using date() but I can't manage to get something that matches the desired syntax...
Thanks in advance for your insights!
3 answers
Hello,
Prefer using the DateTime and DateInterval classes to manipulate dates in PHP.
As indicated in the documentation, an alternative is to use the IntlDateFormatter class.
You can use the predefined constants of this class (LONG, SHORT, RELATIVE_FULL, ...) for the date and time format upon instantiation (2nd and 3rd parameters).
https://www.php.net/manual/fr/class.intldateformatter.php#intl.intldateformatter-constants
You can also define a custom format with the setPattern method.
https://www.php.net/manual/fr/intldateformatter.setpattern.php
<?php $today = new DateTime(); $formatter = new IntlDateFormatter('en_US', IntlDateFormatter::FULL, IntlDateFormatter::NONE); echo $formatter->format($today); // Sunday, July 17, 2022 $formatter->setPattern('EEEE d MMMM y'); echo ucwords($formatter->format($today)); // Sunday, July 17, 2022
Hello Pitet,
Thank you for your help...
But I have this error message:
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Class 'IntlDateFormatter' not found in /var/www/html/gite/gestion/accueil.php:78 Stack trace: #0 {main} thrown in /var/www/html/gite/gestion/accueil.php on line 78
On the other hand, if I copy/paste into my code
class IntlDateFormatter {
..../....
public setTimeZone(IntlTimeZone|DateTimeZone|string|null $timezone): ?bool
}
I get this:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '(', expecting variable (T_VARIABLE) in /var/www/html/gite/gestion/accueil.php on line 78
My lines 76 to 85
class IntlDateFormatter { /* Methods */ public __construct( ?string $locale, int $dateType = IntlDateFormatter::FULL, int $timeType = IntlDateFormatter::FULL, IntlTimeZone|DateTimeZone|string|null $timezone = null, IntlCalendar|int|null $calendar = null, ?string $pattern = null ) But one thing really worries me: Will I have to copy all this gibberish to replace my original 2 lines?
No, you shouldn't redefine the class; you need to enable the PHP Intl extension.
What environment are you developing in? If you're on Windows with software like WampServer or Laragon, the Intl extension should already be present but not enabled. Generally, you just need to uncomment the line extension=intl in the php.ini file and restart the server (you should also be able to enable the extension via the WampServer/Laragon/etc. tool interface). If you're on Linux, you should easily find information on how to enable this extension based on your distribution.
Hello, thanks for the example. Like the author, I planned to look into this change; I'll keep your snippet in mind.
Have a nice day :).