Adding the Now date/time format in Magento

Question

Maybe someone could help me out here. I'm trying to get the correct date/time for this variable.

<?php echo $rma['created_time']; ?>

I've tried lots of ways. Mage::getModel('core/date')->date("F j, Y g:i a"); is the date format I'm trying to get but I need it to convert $rma['created_time']; to the new format.

Here's one attemp but it creates a new date on each page load.

<?php $rma['created_time'] = Mage::getModel('core/date')->date("F j, Y g:i a");echo $rma['created_time']; ?>

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use below code to format date:

<?php
   $dateTimestamp = Mage::getModel('core/date')->timestamp(strtotime($rma['created_time']));
   echo date('F j, Y g:i a', $dateTimestamp);
?>

Answer 2

Here are some additional examples for you on how to use methods built into Magento.

$now   = Mage::getModel('core/date')->gmtDate(); // 2016-05-15 19:05:15
$full  = Mage::helper('core')->formatDate(null, Mage_Core_Model_Locale::FORMAT_TYPE_FULL, true); // Sunday, May 15, 2016 3:05:15 PM America/New_York
$long  = Mage::helper('core')->formatDate(null, Mage_Core_Model_Locale::FORMAT_TYPE_LONG, true); // May 15, 2016 3:05:15 PM EDT
$med   = Mage::helper('core')->formatDate(null, Mage_Core_Model_Locale::FORMAT_TYPE_MEDIUM, true); // May 15, 2016 3:05:15 PM
$short = Mage::helper('core')->formatDate(null, Mage_Core_Model_Locale::FORMAT_TYPE_SHORT, true); // 5/15/2016 3:05 PM

I have also become a big fan of the Zend_Date class. You can do some really cool stuff with it.