PHP: date "F" with setlocale not working

Question

<ul>
    <?php
    $event_date = get_sub_field('event_date'); // 20150203
    $event_date_format = DateTime::createFromFormat('Ymd', $event_date);
    setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE');
    ?>  
    <li>
        <h6><?php echo $event_date_format->format('d');?>. <?php echo $event_date_format->format('F');?></h6>
        <p><?php echo $event_date_format->format('H');?>:<?php echo $event_date_format->format('i');?></p>
    </li>
</ul>

The output of this is

03. February 
19:25

Why does setlocale not have any impact on this. I want my Month "F" to be in german like 3. Feber 19:25

Any idea what I'm doing wrong here?

UPDATE 1:

If I try using strftime() i suddenly get a different date output. it is in german but wrong?

<ul>
        <?php
        $event_date = get_sub_field('event_date');
        $event_date_format = DateTime::createFromFormat('Ymd', $event_date);
        setlocale(LC_ALL, 'de_DE');
        ?>  
        <li>
            <h6><?php echo $event_date_format->format('d');?>. <?php echo strftime('%B', $event_date);?></h6>
            <p><?php echo $event_date_format->format('H');?>:<?php echo $event_date_format->format('i');?></p>
        </li>
    </ul>

Suddenly the output date is not 03. February but 03. August, even though the date should be February.

Any ideas?

UPDATE 2:

This is pretty weird. I just checked the variable $event_date online in a unix conversion tool and the I get this …

$event_date: 20150203

Sat, 22 Aug 1970 05:16:43 GMT

The value is set inside a wordpress backend with a datepicker and clearly says 03/02/2015

enter image description here

possible duplicate of [DateTime::format and strftime](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16906937/datetimeformat-and-strftime) — bishop, May 18 '15 at 15:20
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17567450/php-setlocale-doesnt-work/45848706#45848706 — Flávio H. Ferreira, Aug 23 '17 at 20:28

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered May 17 '15 at 19:32

7

date() and DateTime do not respect locale

use strftime()

http://php.net/manual/en/function.strftime.php

http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

To format dates in other languages, you should use the setlocale() and strftime() functions instead of date().

answered May 17 '15 at 19:32

fbas

1,676
3
16
26

Thank you, I updated my question with the changed ``. However I have the problem now, that my month is different for some reason? It should be "Feber" (february) and not "August" as it is output now. – matt May 18 '15 at 06:09
1

You began to use $event_date_format, but for this call you are still using $event_date, which is the string '20150302'. the strftime is treating that as an integer, in epoch time (aka Unix Timestamp, number of seconds since Jan 1 1970). You should instead use ``strftime('%B', $event_date_format->getTimestamp() )`` – fbas May 18 '15 at 14:44
Deprecated function in PHP 8.1. – Khom Nazid Apr 05 '22 at 01:36

bishop · Answer 2 · 2015-05-17T19:40:30.320

2

Annoyingly, date is not locale-aware. From the manual:

To format dates in other languages, you should use the setlocale() and strftime() functions instead of date.

You probably want:

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'de_DE');
echo strftime('%B');

Alternatively, checkout Carbon. It's got a consistent API that includes locale-awareness. As an example:

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'German');
echo Carbon::now()->formatLocalized('%B'); // Sonntag

edited May 17 '15 at 19:40

answered May 17 '15 at 19:34

bishop

37,830
11
104
139

2

Deprecated function in PHP 8.1. – Khom Nazid Apr 05 '22 at 01:35

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 18 '20 at 21:26

2

setlocale(LC_TIME,'de_DE.UTF8');
$eventDate = new DateTime(get_field('event_date'));
$eventDate_ts = $eventDate->getTimestamp();
echo gmstrftime("%B", $eventDate_ts);

Character coding is set to 'de_DE.UTF8' for German, gmstrftime is used here, also.

March to März, Mar to Mrz.

The Member function of DateTime() generates the necessary Timestamp.

answered Mar 18 '20 at 21:26

LastChain

21
3

Deprecated function in PHP 8.1. – Khom Nazid Apr 05 '22 at 01:35

PHP: date "F" with setlocale not working

3 Answers3

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