Output just month from date field

[Peter Knight]

I've been reading through the forums regarding date and time output and trying to understand it better. At the moment, none of the samples are working for me 

Basically, I have a Datetime field set to output M j, Y
On the front end, this is basically Sep 25, 2013 etc

I was wondering how I could change following

{$test->testimonial_date}

to isolate just the date or the month or year.

Here's my code:

<?php
$tests = $pages->find("template=detail-testimonial, sort=-date"); 
foreach ($tests as $test)
echo "
   {$test->testimonial_date}<br/> 
   <h3>{$test->title}</h3>
   <p>{$test->testimonial_body}</p>
<hr/>
;?>

I want to keep the Datetime field as is instead of creating a different datefield for day, month year.

[adrian]

date("F", $test->getUnformatted("testimonial_date")); // October

Check out the php manual for other codes to use in place of "F":

http://php.net/manual/en/function.date.php

[Peter Knight]

I can see what it's doing. Just not sure how to integrate with my block of code.

Do I add your line at the start before echo like so?

<?php
date("F", $test->getUnformatted("testimonial_date")); // October

$tests = $pages->find("template=detail-testimonial, sort=-date"); 
foreach ($tests as $test)
echo "
   {$test->testimonial_date}<br/> 
   <h3>{$test->title}</h3>
   <p>{$test->testimonial_body}</p>
<hr/>
;?>

I've tried a few things and am getting an error.

[SiNNuT]

Something like this should work

<?php
$tests = $pages->find("template=detail-testimonial, sort=-date"); 

foreach ($tests as $test) {
    $mydate = date("F", $test->getUnformatted("testimonial_date"));
    echo "{$mydate}<br/><h3>{$test->title}</h3><p>{$test->testimonial_body}</p><hr/>";
}

Actually, i'm not sure that setting an extra var ($mydate) would be most efficient. You can also do it directly and then concatenate your stuff together.

[Peter Knight]

Thank you both. Didn't realise it has to be nested.

All working now