How do you find a description of the DateTime class in the PHP documentation?

Question

Sounds easy, but I can't find where this built in class and others exists in the documentation. I use functions but want to know what there is on the OO side.

Answer 1

It's not a URL or anything, but you can get a fair idea using Reflection:

Reflection::export(new ReflectionClass('DateTime'));

Class [  class DateTime ] {

  - Constants [11] {
    Constant [ string ATOM ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sP }
    Constant [ string COOKIE ] { l, d-M-y H:i:s T }
    Constant [ string ISO8601 ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sO }
    Constant [ string RFC822 ] { D, d M y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC850 ] { l, d-M-y H:i:s T }
    Constant [ string RFC1036 ] { D, d M y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC1123 ] { D, d M Y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC2822 ] { D, d M Y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC3339 ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sP }
    Constant [ string RSS ] { D, d M Y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string W3C ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sP }
  }

  - Static properties [0] {
  }

  - Static methods [0] {
  }

  - Properties [0] {
  }

  - Methods [9] {
    Method [  public method __construct ] {
    }

    Method [  public method format ] {
    }

    Method [  public method modify ] {
    }

    Method [  public method getTimezone ] {
    }

    Method [  public method setTimezone ] {
    }

    Method [  public method getOffset ] {
    }

    Method [  public method setTime ] {
    }

    Method [  public method setDate ] {
    }

    Method [  public method setISODate ] {
    }
  }
}

Not perfect, as there are no arguments, but a starting point at least. They should make this easier to find out, I agree!

Answer 2

There is a list of new classes in PHP 5.2.0 here:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration52.classes.php

..which links to the new DateTime class info here:

http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.datetime.php

Answer 3

The URL you mentioned http://www.php.net/manual/en/migration52.classes.php doens't describe the class at all. Surely there is somewhere where this and other classes are documented.

Answer 4

A description can be found in the comments of the documentation :

http://php.net/manual/fr/book.datetime.php#84699

EDIT : This morning I found something interresting :

http://laughingmeme.org/2007/02/27/looking-at-php5s-datetime-and-datetimezone/

Answer 5

The DateTime class documentation can be found at php.net/DateTime , this has information on both the class and functions, or just the class documentation is available at php.net/manual/en/class.datetime.php

Answer 6

The stuff is documented in documentation - maybe not that time you asked for it.

Anyway, by the author of the extension, you can have a read to get the full details: http://derickrethans.nl/phparchitects-guide-to-date-and-time-programming.html

Next to that Derick Rethans is giving talks here and there about the subject and slides are available. If you have the chance to visit a conference and listen to one of his talks, just do it.

A recent one:

FrOsCon, 22 Aug 2010: xxxx://derickrethans.nl/talks/time-froscon10.pdf (Source: xxxx://derickrethans.nl/talks.html)