In WordPress, the date and time are retrieved and displayed using template tags, such as the_date and the_time. Some template tags can be used with format parameters to specify how the output is displayed. For example, the_time with the parameters shown below:
<?php the_time('l, F jS, Y') ?>
is displayed in a published post or page as:
Monday, September 25th, 2017
Note that format parameters are case-sensitive, and commas (,) and slashes (/) are displayed exactly as written in the format string between the parentheses.
Format parameters
Log in to WordPress via the HostPapa Dashboard. Because it is written in the PHP programming language, WordPress date formatting uses PHP date formatting functions. Some of the most commonly used parameters are described below.
| Parameter | Displayed result | Example |
| Month | ||
| F | The full name of the month | January – December |
| M | The three-letter abbreviation of the month | Jan – Dec |
| m | The numeric month with leading zeros | 01 – 12 |
| n | The numeric month without leading zeros | 1 – 12 |
| Day of the month | ||
| d | The numeric day of the month with leading zeros | 01 – 31 |
| j | The numeric day of the month without leading zeros | 1 – 31 |
| S | The suffix for the numeric day of the month | st (in 1st), nd (in 2nd) |
| Weekday | ||
| l (lower-case L) | The full day of the week | Monday – Sunday |
| D | The three-letter abbreviation of the day of the week | Mon – Sun |
| Year | ||
| Y | The four-digit year | 2017 |
| y | The two-digit year | 17 |
| Time | ||
| a | Lower-case am or pm | am, pm |
| A | Upper-case AM or PM | AM, PM |
| g | The hour in 12-hour format without leading zeros | 1 – 12 |
| h | The hour in 12-hour format with leading zeros | 01 – 12 |
| G | The hour in 24-hour format without leading zeros | 0 – 23 |
| H | The hour in 24-hour format with leading zeros | 00 – 23 |
| i | Minutes with leading zeros | 00 – 59 |
| s | Seconds with leading zeros | 00 – 59 |
| T | The abbreviated time zone | PST, EDT |
| Full date and time | ||
| c | ISO 8601 | 2017-09-12T15:19:21+00:00 |
| r | RFC 2822 | Mon, 25 Sep 2017 16:01:07 +0200 |
| U | Unix timestamp (seconds since Unix Epoch) | 1455880176 |
Template tag examples
The table below includes examples of how formatted parameters are used with the the_time template tag and displayed in published WordPress posts. In the last example (Monday, September 25th, 2017 at 1:01 PM), note that the ‘a’ and ‘t’ characters in the format parameter string require preceding backslashes (\) to be displayed as the word ‘at’ in the published post.
| Template tag with format parameters | Displayed date or time |
<?php the_time('Y/m/d') ?> |
2017/09/25 |
<?php the_time('Y/n/d') ?> |
2017/9/25 |
<?php the_time('F j, Y') ?> |
September 25, 2017 |
<?php the_time('M j, Y') ?> |
Sep 25, 2017 |
<?php the_time('h:i A') ?> |
01:01 PM |
<?php the_time('H:i a') ?> |
13:01 pm |
<?php the_time('l, F jS, Y \a\t g:i A') ?> |
Monday, September 25th, 2017 at 1:01 PM |
More information
For more information about template tags and customizing how dates and times are displayed, check out these resources:
If you need help with your HostPapa account, please open a support ticket from your dashboard.
