Date for LaravelPHP

Working w/ dates can be a bear. While this helper class probably is missing some things, I find it helpful.

Install

In application/bundles.php add:

'date' => array('auto' => true),

Examples

Some basic examples:

// default timestamp is now
$date = Date::forge();

// pass timestamps
$date = Date::forge(1333857600);

// pass strings
$date = Date::forge('last sunday');

// get timestamp
$date = Date::forge('last sunday')->time(); // 1333857600

// get a nice format
$date = Date::forge('last sunday')->format('%B %d, %Y'); // April 08, 2012

// get a predefined format
$date = Date::forge('last sunday')->format('datetime'); // 2012-04-08 00:00:00
$date = Date::forge('last sunday')->format('date'); // 2012-04-08
$date = Date::forge('last sunday')->format('time'); // 00:00:00

// amend the timestamp value, relative to existing value
$date = Date::forge('2012-04-05')->reforge('+ 3 days')->format('date'); // 2012-04-08

// get relative 'ago' format
$date = Date::forge('now - 10 minutes')->ago() // 10 minutes ago

Math w/ Dates

Let's look at some date comparison examples:

// passing objects
$date1 = Date::forge('2012-04-05');
$date2 = Date::forge('2012-04-08');
$diff = Date::diff($date1, $date2);
/*
DateInterval Object
(
    [y] => 0
    [m] => 0
    [d] => 3
    [h] => 0
    [i] => 0
    [s] => 0
    [invert] => 0
    [days] => 3
)
*/

// passing timestamps
$diff = Date::diff(1333598400, 1333857600);
/*
DateInterval Object
(
    [y] => 0
    [m] => 0
    [d] => 3
    [h] => 0
    [i] => 0
    [s] => 0
    [invert] => 0
    [days] => 3
)
*/

// passing strings
$diff = Date::diff('April 08, 2012', 'April 05, 2012');
/*
DateInterval Object
(
    [y] => 0
    [m] => 0
    [d] => 3
    [h] => 0
    [i] => 0
    [s] => 0
    [invert] => 1
    [days] => 3
)
*/

Formatting

For help in building your formats, checkout the PHP strftime() docs.

Notes

The class relies on strtotime() to make sense of your strings, and strftime() to make the format changes. Just always check the time() output to see if you get false timestamps... which means the class couldn't understand what you were telling it.