Cms: The formatDateTime directive cannot output unix timestamps

[joshuabaker]

Description

It’s currently not possible to format dates into unix timestamps. The following outputs something else entirely.

dateCreated@formatDateTime(format: "U")

Additional info

• Craft version: 3.5.1
• PHP version: 7.4.2

[joshuabaker]

Under the hood, the date format U (or php:U) appears to be converted to an empty string before being formatted.

https://github.com/craftcms/cms/blob/5016c32dc12e04e6a738c804481e97187b667223/src/i18n/Formatter.php#L162

[joshuabaker]

A possible solution would be to reuse this code from asDate before the PHP to ICU reformat that I mention above in asDatetime.

[joshuabaker]

Thanks, @brandonkelly. 👍

Would definitely be worthwhile amending the docs for this too, if you’ve not already.

[brandonkelly]

Which docs?

[joshuabaker]

https://craftcms.com/docs/3.x/graphql.html#list-of-available-directives

The format description should probably mention the php: prefix and reference the expected value format(s).

[brandonkelly]

Ah, right. Just updated that for the next release: e8e8cadd02cf391d2c0b32f18040cbbd4539ef3d

[brandonkelly]

Craft 3.5.6 is out now with that fix.