Displays or retrieves the date the current post was written (once per date)

Description

Will only output the date if the current post’s date is different from the previous one output.

i.e. Only one date listing will show per day worth of posts shown in the loop, even if the function is called several times for each post.

HTML output can be filtered with ‘the_date’.
Date string output can be filtered with ‘get_the_date’.

Parameters

$formatstringoptional

PHP date format. Defaults to the 'date_format' option.

Default:''

$beforestringoptional

Output before the date.

Default:''

$afterstringoptional

Output after the date.

Default:''

$displaybooloptional

Whether to echo the date or return it.

Default:true

Return

Source

function the_date( $format = '', $before = '', $after = '', $display = true ) {
	global $currentday, $previousday;

	$the_date = '';

	if ( is_new_day() ) {
		$the_date    = $before . get_the_date( $format ) . $after;
		$previousday = $currentday;
	}

	/**
	 * Filters the date a post was published for display.
	 *
	 * @since 0.71
	 *
	 * @param string $the_date The formatted date string.
	 * @param string $format   PHP date format.
	 * @param string $before   HTML output before the date.
	 * @param string $after    HTML output after the date.
	 */
	$the_date = apply_filters( 'the_date', $the_date, $format, $before, $after );

	if ( $display ) {
		echo $the_date;
	} else {
		return $the_date;
	}
}

View all references View on Trac View on GitHub

Hooks

apply_filters( ‘the_date’, string $the_date, string $format, string $before, string $after )

Filters the date a post was published for display.

Changelog