Object of class DateTime could not be converted to string

Question

I have a table with string values in the format of Friday 20th April 2012 in a field called Film_Release

I am looping through and i want to convert

Answer 1

Check to make sure there is a film release date; if the date is missing you will not be able to format on a non-object.

if ($info['Film_Release']){ //check if the date exists
   $dateFromDB = $info['Film_Release'];
   $newDate = DateTime::createFromFormat("l dS F Y", $dateFromDB);
   $newDate = $newDate->format('d/m/Y'); 
} else {
   $newDate = "none"; 
}

or

 $newDate = ($info['Film_Release']) ? DateTime::createFromFormat("l dS F Y", $info['Film_Release'])->format('d/m/Y'): "none" 

Answer 2

Because $newDate is an object of type DateTime, not a string. The documentation is explicit:

Returns new DateTime object formatted according to the specified format.

If you want to convert from a string to DateTime back to string to change the format, call DateTime::format at the end to get a formatted string out of your DateTime.

$newDate = DateTime::createFromFormat("l dS F Y", $dateFromDB);
$newDate = $newDate->format('d/m/Y'); // for example

Answer 3

It's kind of offtopic, but i come here from googling the same error. For me this error appeared when i was selecting datetime field from mssql database and than using it later in php-script. like this:

$SQL="SELECT Created
FROM test_table";

$stmt = sqlsrv_query($con, $SQL);
if( $stmt === false ) {
    die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

$Row = sqlsrv_fetch_array($stmt,SQLSRV_FETCH_ASSOC);


$SQL="INSERT INTO another_test_table (datetime_field) VALUES ('".$Row['Created']."')";
$stmt = sqlsrv_query($con, $SQL);
if( $stmt === false ) {
    die( print_r( sqlsrv_errors(), true));
}

the INSERT statement was giving error: Object of class DateTime could not be converted to string

I realized that you CAN'T just select the datetime from database:

SELECT Created FROM test_table

BUT you have to use CONVERT for this field:

SELECT CONVERT(varchar(24),Created) as Created FROM test_table

Answer 4

If you are using Twig templates for Symfony, you can use the classic {{object.date_attribute.format('d/m/Y')}} to obtain the desired formatted date.

Answer 5

Try this:

$Date = $row['valdate']->format('d/m/Y'); // the result will 01/12/2015

NOTE: $row['valdate'] its a value date in the database

Answer 6

You're trying to insert $newdate into your db. You need to convert it to a string first. Use the DateTime::format method to convert back to a string.