How to format the output of [*pub_date*]?

First off, I’m a noob to both MODx and PHP, so apologies in advance if this is an obvious question:

When including a [*pub_date*] call in a document, how do you format the output?

The beginners documentation says:
pub_date - Date the document is to be published. This is not a "normal" date, and must be processed by a script for meaningful output. Example:
strftime("%d/%m/%y %H:%M:%S", $value)

I understand strftime formatting, but how do I apply this value to the [*pub_date*] tag? It’s not specified anywhere for the PHP challenged.

Any help is much appreciated, thanks!

There is a handy snippet in the repository called DateTime that will format the date which ever way you choose.
http://modxcms.com/DateTime-884.html

Alternatively you could install the PHx plug-in and format the placeholder directly

Thanks for the help Shane, it works almost perfectly.

The one problem I’m having is applying the correct timestamp; the dates keep showing up as December 31, 1969.

My call looks like this:



I’m guessing that `pub_date` isn’t a valid value for the timestamp parameter, but I can’t find any reference to supported values for the snippet. Any idea what I should put in there? Thanks again for your help!

You’re passing the literal string "pub_date" to the snippet, instead of the value you want.
Try this:

Thanks for the suggestion, unfortunately I’m still getting the same output.

Use non-cached form [!...!].

Sweet, that did the trick. Thanks all!

I think that the best way to format any of output data is PHx. Different modifiers, logical conditions and other stuff.

In your case: [*pub_date:date=`%B %d, %Y`*]

No need to use dozens of different snippets. In future 0.9.7. it will be a part of MODx core.

I am using what is recommended above:

[!DateTime? &format=`%B %d, %Y` &timestamp=`[*pub_date*]`!]

but the only date that is returned is Dec. 31, 1969.

Any suggestions? Thanks

Sorry, I figured it out. My document did not have the pub_date set. Now it does and all is well.