Need more ideas for date and time class

Wildhoney · 01-18-2008, 02:17 AM

I'm writing a new date and time class. It'll bring all of PHP's inconsistencies when it comes to date and time together. I've written the main chunk of it, and as you can see from the examples below, I've done quite a lot. You'll also see that I've taken the method chaining approach.

However, is there anything else anybody would like to see in a date and time class? Hopefully I can make this awesome enough to help people out with date and time - it's clearly one of those areas where there are a lot of functions all over the place, different formats of dates, et cetera.

php Code:

/* Get day in EST */
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->toEST()->getDay();

/* Check if day is a weekend */
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->isWeekend() ? 'Yes' : 'No';

/* Check if date is valid */
echo $pDateTime->date('30th February 2008')->isDate() ? 'Yes' : 'No';

/* Custom format output */
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->toDate('jS M Y');

/* Output MySQL date in BST */
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->toBST()->toMySQLDate();

/* Days until Christmas 2009 */
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->untilChristmas(2009)->inDays();

/* Difference in hours between GMT and EST */
$iTargetDate = $pDateTime->date(mktime())->toGMT()->toTimestamp();
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->toEST()->until($iTargetDate)->inHours();

Alan @ CIT · 01-18-2008, 11:25 AM

Hi mate,

One of the things I've always wanted to see in a date class is a method to compare two dates and return an array of date parts showing the difference.

Also your date() method looks like it can take multiple date formats so it would be handy if you write an add() / sub() method to add or remove to a date.

For example

PHP Code:


			
<?php



$newDate = $pDateTime->date('1st February 2008')->add('month', 3);

$newDate = $pDateTime->date('2008-05-26')->sub('day', 20);

If I think of any more I'll let you know.

Alan

Wildhoney · 01-18-2008, 02:22 PM

Thanks for the suggestion, bud

All added!

php Code:

/* Add 3 months to current date and time */
echo $pDateTime->date(mktime())->add('month', 3)->toDate('jS M Y');