Making Craft\DateTime Object from string in Twig

Question

I'm trying to use Craft's native datepicker with a plugin I've made for the admin section.

I've got some code that works;

{% from "_includes/forms" import date %}

<h3>Start Date</h3>

{{ date({
    id: 'startDate',
    name: 'startDate',
    value: now
}) }}

but I can't seem to get it to work with any other date, no matter what I do.

In my URL I have;

startDate=09/02/2017

and in my twig template I have;

{% set startDate = craft.request.getParam('startDate') %}

What do I need to do to startDate in order to get the date picker to read that date?

Answer 1

Unfortunately, what you're trying to do, is not possible without writing a simple plugin to return a Craft\DateTime object that the day picker can work with.

The global variable now, is a Craft\DateTime object, which the date picker is happy to work with because it can call localeDate() on it.

However, anything returned by date or date_modify twig filters, will be a \DateTime object, which lacks functionality that the date picker relies on.

Your only option would be, to create a simple plugin that can take your date parameter, and return a Craft\DateTime object, which you can pass as a value to the date picker/date macro.

This is one of those things that you think, "this should be easy or at least possible", but I haven't found a twig-only solution yet.

Answer 2

I achieved this by putting this into my variables file;

public function craftDate($date) {

     $dateObject = DateTime::createFromString($date,craft()->timezone);

     return $dateObject;

 }

and then calling this in my template by using;

{{ date({
    id: 'startDate',
    name: 'startDate',
    value: craft.formExport.craftDate(reconfiguredStartDate)
}) }}

(The date had been reconfigured from 01/02/2017 to 2017-02-01)

Answer 3

The Twig Perversion plugin has a date_from_string filter that turns a string into a Craft\DateTime object.