Date and time in Greek

Question

I'm currently using a website to get the time in Athens:

$d = new DateTime("now", new DateTimeZone("Europe/Athens"));
echo $d->format("l, d M Y");

But I would like the date to be displayed in Greek and in the same format.

Salic

What do you need? Add an example of what you expect. – Diplococcus

Thank you for the quick response, something like this: Πέμπτη, 14 Φεβρουαρίου, 2013 – Salic

See my answer then. That's the solution. – Diplococcus

Answer 1

I was in the quest to find the same thing but I didn't find a full solution as I needed it. In my case I need to write the posted datetime of the article in Greek like Αναρτήθηκε Σάββατο 2 Μαΐου 2015.

So using some code of costastg answer, I managed to put together the following function.

I am sure there are other solutions out there:

function formatToGreekDate($date){
    //Expected date format yyyy-mm-dd hh:MM:ss
    $greekMonths = array('Ιανουαρίου','Φεβρουαρίου','Μαρτίου','Απριλίου','Μαΐου','Ιουνίου','Ιουλίου','Αυγούστου','Σεπτεμβρίου','Οκτωβρίου','Νοεμβρίου','Δεκεμβρίου');
    $greekdays = array('Δευτέρα','Τρίτη','Τετάρτη','Πέμπτη','Παρασκευή','Σάββατο','Κυριακή');

    $time = strtotime($date);
    $newformat = date('Y-m-d',$time);

    return $greekdays[date('N', strtotime($newformat))-1].' '. date('j', strtotime($newformat)).' '.$greekMonths[date('m', strtotime($newformat))-1]. ' '. date('Y', strtotime($newformat)); // . ' '. $date;
}

Nickens

This is a poor answer. It requires a reimplementation of date formatting for the specific language. What if I want the site to support 10 languages? Do I have to include all of them in my code literally? That's exactly what locales are for! Duplication of such implementation should be avoided and not be made for all of your web apps on your own. – Fee

You should consider using resource files in order to use 10 languages. Months can be pronounced differently in different occasions. For example its different to say Φεβρουαρίου and different Φεβρουάριος even if they mean the same month but the usability in the LANGUAGE is different – Nickens

Correct - but this is the job of a localization library and should not be part of your application. Multiple applications should reuse the same underlying localization library instead of reimplementing it. As for your example with "Φεβρουαρίου" and "Φεβρουάριος", the Unicode Standard specifies different month formats for these: Note that it has two different fields marked as "intended to be used without ‘d’ for day number" and "intended to be used in conjunction with ‘d’ for day number" respectively for exactly this reason. – Fee

Answer 2

The full answer:

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Athens');

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'el_GR.UTF-8');
echo strftime('%A ');
$greekMonths = array('Ιανουαρίου','Φεβρουαρίου','Μαρτίου','Απριλίου','Μαΐου','Ιουνίου','Ιουλίου','Αυγούστου','Σεπτεμβρίου','Οκτωβρίου','Νοεμβρίου','Δεκεμβρίου');
$greekDate = date('j') . ' ' . $greekMonths[intval(date('m'))-1] . ' ' . date('Y');
echo $greekDate;

this will display the date like:

Πέμπτη 4 Φεβρουαρίου 2013

UPDATE: For the above chunk to work it is very important to set your PHP locale to Greek.

This is an alternative:

date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Athens');

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'el_GR.UTF-8');
$day = date("w");
$greekDays = array( "Κυριακή", "Δευτέρα", "Τρίτη", "Τετάρτη", "Πέμπτη", "Παρασκευή", "Σάββατο" ); 
$greekMonths = array('Ιανουαρίου','Φεβρουαρίου','Μαρτίου','Απριλίου','Μαΐου','Ιουνίου','Ιουλίου','Αυγούστου','Σεπτεμβρίου','Οκτωβρίου','Νοεμβρίου','Δεκεμβρίου');

$greekDate = $greekDays[$day] . ' ' . date('j') . ' ' . $greekMonths[intval(date('m'))-1] . ' ' . date('Y');
echo $greekDate;

Chapin

For my server it prints, Tuesday 12 Μαΐου 2015. It seems that the day is not translated. – Nickens

@themis Then try this one: <?php date_default_timezone_set('Europe/Athens'); setlocale(LC_TIME, 'el_GR.UTF-8'); $day = date("w"); $greekDays = array( "Κυριακή", "Δευτέρα", "Τρίτη", "Τετάρτη", "Πέμπτη", "Παρασκευή", "Σάββατο" ); $greekMonths=array('Ιανουαρίου','Φεβρουαρίου','Μαρτίου','Απριλίου','Μαΐου','Ιουνίου','Ιουλίου','Αυγούστου','Σεπτεμβρίου','Οκτωβρίου','Νοεμβρίου','Δεκεμβρίου'); $greekDate = $greekDays[$day] . ' ' . date('j') . ' ' . $greekMonths[intval(date('m'))-1] . ' ' . date('Y'); echo $greekDate; ?> – Chapin

Answer 3

You should use setlocale and strftime, an example to get the idea:

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'el_GR.UTF-8');

// Your display formatting from https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.strftime.php
$field_date_format = '%A, %d %B, %Y'; 

// Will display= Greek: Πέμπτη, 14 Φεβρουάριος, 2013
echo "Greek: ".strftime($field_date_format, strtotime("14-02-2013"));

I know "Φεβρουάριος" is not "Φεβρουάριου" but if is not crucial to your needs you can use this.

Prostyle

Answer 4

You should have everything you need using date:

$greekMonths = [
    'Ianouarios', 'Fevrouarios', 'Martios', 'Aprilios', 'Maios',
    'Iounios', 'Ioulios', 'Avgoustos', 'Septemvrios', 'Oktovrios', 
    'Noemvrios', 'Dekemvrios'
];
$greekDate = date('d') . ' ' . $greekMonths[intval(date('m'))-1] . ' ' . date('Y');  
echo $greekDate;

Second way using setlocale:

setlocale(LC_CTYPE, 'greek');  
setlocale(LC_TIME, 'greek');

Underlaid

Answer 5

A simple method that works for all formats

function date_greek($format,$time=null){
    if($time===null)$time=time();
    $date = date($format,$time);
    if(strpos($format,'F')!==false){
        $en_months = array('January','February','March','April','May','June','July','August','September','October','November','December');
        $el_months = array('Ιανουαρίου','Φεβρουαρίου','Μαρτίου','Απριλίου','Μαΐου','Ιουνίου','Ιουλίου','Αυγούστου','Σεπτεμβρίου','Οκτωβρίου','Νοεμβρίου','Δεκεμβρίου');
    }else{
        $en_months = array('Jan','Feb','Mar','Apr','May','Jun','Jul','Aug','Sep','Oct','Nov','Dec');
        $el_months = array('Ιαν','Φεβ','Μαρ','Απρ','Μαι','Ιουν','Ιουλ','Αυγ','Σεπ','Οκτ','Νοε','Δεκ');
    }

    $en_days = array('Monday','Tuesday','Wednesday','Thursday','Friday','Saturday','Sunday');
    $el_days = array('Δευτέρα','Τρίτη','Τετάρτη','Πέμπτη','Παρασκευή','Σάββατο','Κυριακή');
    $en_days_s = array('Mon','Tue','Wed','Thu','Fri','Sat','Sun');
    $el_days_s = array('Δευ','Τρι','Τετ','Πεμ','Παρ','Σαβ','Κυρ');
    $en_ampm = array('AM','PM');
    $el_ampm = array('ΠΜ','ΜΜ');

    $date_el = str_replace($en_months,$el_months,$date);
    $date_el = str_replace($en_days,$el_days,$date_el);
    $date_el = str_replace($en_days_s,$el_days_s,$date_el);
    $date_el = str_replace($en_ampm,$el_ampm,$date_el);
    
    return $date_el;
}


echo date_greek('l, d M Y',strtotime('2021-04-25')); // Πέμπτη, 22 Απρ 2021
echo date_greek('l j F Y h:i:s A',strtotime('2021-04-25')); // Πέμπτη 22 Απριλίου 2021 12:00:00 ΠΜ

Sorrows

Answer 6

If I'm right you want to display the l parameter in Greek. You should set your PHP locale to Greek then.

Use setlocale(): http://php.net/manual/en/function.setlocale.php

setlocale(LC_TIME, 'greek');

Diplococcus

This is the correct answer. Then use strftime to format the date according to locale. – Fee