DateTime 类

(PHP 5 >= 5.2.0, PHP 7, PHP 8)

简介

日期和时间。

类摘要

DateTime implements DateTimeInterface {
/* 继承的常量 */
const string DateTimeInterface::ATOM = "Y-m-d\TH:i:sP" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::COOKIE = "l, d-M-Y H:i:s T" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::ISO8601 = "Y-m-d\TH:i:sO" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC822 = "D, d M y H:i:s O" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC850 = "l, d-M-y H:i:s T" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC1036 = "D, d M y H:i:s O" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC1123 = "D, d M Y H:i:s O" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC7231 = "D, d M Y H:i:s \G\M\T" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC2822 = "D, d M Y H:i:s O" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC3339 = "Y-m-d\TH:i:sP" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RFC3339_EXTENDED = "Y-m-d\TH:i:s.vP" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::RSS = "D, d M Y H:i:s O" ;
const string DateTimeInterface::W3C = "Y-m-d\TH:i:sP" ;
/* 方法 */
public __construct ( string $time = "now" , DateTimeZone $timezone = null )
public add ( DateInterval $interval ) : DateTime
public static createFromFormat ( string $format , string $time , DateTimeZone $timezone = ? ) : DateTime
public static createFromImmutable ( DateTimeImmutable $object ) : DateTime
public static createFromInterface ( DateTimeInterface $object ) : DateTime
public static getLastErrors ( ) : array
public modify ( string $modifier ) : DateTime
public static __set_state ( array $array ) : DateTime
public setDate ( int $year , int $month , int $day ) : DateTime
public setISODate ( int $year , int $week , int $dayOfWeek = 1 ) : DateTime
public setTime ( int $hour , int $minute , int $second = 0 , int $microsecond = 0 ) : DateTime
public setTimestamp ( int $unixtimestamp ) : DateTime
public setTimezone ( DateTimeZone $timezone ) : DateTime
public sub ( DateInterval $interval ) : DateTime
public diff ( DateTimeInterface $targetObject , bool $absolute = false ) : DateInterval
public format ( string $format ) : string
public getOffset ( ) : int
public getTimestamp ( ) : int
public getTimezone ( ) : DateTimeZone|false
public __wakeup ( ) : void
}

更新日志

版本 说明
7.2.0 DateTime 的类常量现在定义在 DateTimeInterface 上。
7.0.0 新增常量：DATE_RFC3339_EXTENDED 和 DateTime::RFC3339_EXTENDED。
5.5.0 实现 DateTimeInterface 接口。
5.4.24 COOKIE 格式从 2 位数字表示年份（RFC 850） 修改为 4 位数字表示年份（RFC 1036）。
5.2.2 DateTime 对象进行比较操作（comparison operators）的时候 可以正常工作了。 在之前的版本中，当使用 == 进行相等比较的时候， 所有的 DateTime 对象都会被视为是相等的。

Table of Contents

User Contributed Notes

kim dot jangwook dot 1029 at gmail dot com 19-Sep-2020 12:06
Set Timezone and formatting.

<?php

$unixTime = time();
$timeZone = new \DateTimeZone('Asia/Tokyo');

$time = new \DateTime();
$time->setTimestamp($unixTime)->setTimezone($timeZone);

$formattedTime = $time->format('Y/m/d H:i:s');
echo $formattedTime;

?>
david dot p dot mclaughlin at gmail dot com 28-Jan-2020 10:47
Example displaying each time format:

$dateTime = new DateTime();

foreach ([
   'ATOM',
   'COOKIE',
   'ISO8601',
   'RFC822',
   'RFC850',
   'RFC1036',
   'RFC1123',
   'RFC2822',
   'RFC3339',
   'RFC3339_EXTENDED',
   'RSS',
   'W3C',
   ] as $format) {
   eval("print 'DateTimeInterface::$format\t'.\$dateTime->format(DateTimeInterface::$format).\"\n\";");
}

The above example will output:

DateTimeInterface::ATOM    2020-01-28T16:22:37-07:00
DateTimeInterface::COOKIE    Tuesday, 28-Jan-2020 16:22:37 MST
DateTimeInterface::ISO8601    2020-01-28T16:22:37-0700
DateTimeInterface::RFC822    Tue, 28 Jan 20 16:22:37 -0700
DateTimeInterface::RFC850    Tuesday, 28-Jan-20 16:22:37 MST
DateTimeInterface::RFC1036    Tue, 28 Jan 20 16:22:37 -0700
DateTimeInterface::RFC1123    Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:22:37 -0700
DateTimeInterface::RFC2822    Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:22:37 -0700
DateTimeInterface::RFC3339    2020-01-28T16:22:37-07:00
DateTimeInterface::RFC3339_EXTENDED    2020-01-28T16:22:37.803-07:00
DateTimeInterface::RSS    Tue, 28 Jan 2020 16:22:37 -0700
DateTimeInterface::W3C    2020-01-28T16:22:37-07:00
ivijan dot stefan at gmail dot com 31-Dec-2019 08:03
Here is easiest way to find the days difference between two dates:

<?php
if(!function_exists('date_between')) :
    function date_between($date_start, $date_end)
    {
        if(!$date_start || !$date_end) return 0;
       
        if( class_exists('DateTime') )
        {
            $date_start    = new DateTime( $date_start );
            $date_end    = new DateTime( $date_end );
            return $date_end->diff($date_start)->format('%a');
        }
        else
        {           
            return abs( round( ( strtotime($date_start) - strtotime($date_end) ) / 86400 ) );
        }
    }
endif;
?>

In the general, I use 'DateTime' to find days between 2 dates. But if in the some reason, some server setup not have 'DateTime' enabled, it will use simple (but not safe) calculation with 'strtotime()'.
j dot vd dot merwe at enovision dot net 07-Aug-2019 09:13
When given 2 variables and you want to change the date of the first variable but not the time, it can be done like this:

<?php
// First date is today
$dateOne = new DateTime();

// Second date is some date
$dateTwo = new DateTime('14-10-1963');

echo 'Date one before change: ' . $dateOne->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
echo '<br/>';
echo 'Date two: ' . $dateTwo->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');

// Now modify the date of variable $dateOne with the date of $dateTwo
$dateOne->modify($dateTwo->format('Y-m-d'));
       
echo '<br/>';
echo 'Date one after change: ' . $dateOne->format('Y-m-d H:i:s');
?>

Outputs:

Date one before change: 2019-08-07 09:32:44
Date two: 1963-10-14 00:00:00
Date one after change: 1963-10-14 09:32:44
ccbsschucko at gmail dot com 25-May-2018 12:19
<?php
    // PHP >= 7

    class DatetimeTool {

        /**
        * @param str => $formato_final = formato de saída
        */
        public function now(string $formato_final = 'Y-m-d H:i:s'){
            return (new DateTime('now'))->format($formato_final);
        }

        /**
        * @param str => $data = data a ser formatada
        * @param str => $formato_final = formato de saída
        */
        public function format(string $data, string $formato_final){
            return (new DateTime($data))->format($formato_final);
        }

       
        /**
        * @param str => $data_inicio = data de inicio que recebe o acréscimo
        * @param arr => $add = valores adicionados [ano,mes,dia,hora,minuto,segundo]
        * @param str => $formato_final = formato de saída
        */
        public function add(string $data_inicio, array $add = [0,0,0,0,0,0], string $formato_final){
            return (new DateTime($data_inicio))->add(new DateInterval('P'.$add[0].'Y'.$add[1].'M'.$add[2].'DT'.$add[3].'H'.$add[4].'M'.$add[5].'S'))->format($formato_final);
        }

        /**
        * @param str => $data_inicio = data de inicio que recebe o decréscimo
        * @param arr => $add = valores adicionados [ano,mes,dia,hora,minuto,segundo]
        * @param str => $formato_final = formato de saída
        */
        public function sub(string $data_inicio, array $add = [0,0,0,0,0,0], string $formato_final){
            return (new DateTime($data_inicio))->sub(new DateInterval('P'.$add[0].'Y'.$add[1].'M'.$add[2].'DT'.$add[3].'H'.$add[4].'M'.$add[5].'S'))->format($formato_final);
        }

    }
?>

<?php
    var_dump((new DatetimeTool)->now('d-m-Y'));

    var_dump((new DatetimeTool)->format('1970-01-01', 'd-m-Y'));

    var_dump((new DatetimeTool)->add(date('d-m-Y H:i:s'), [0,1,0,0,10,0], 'd-m-Y'));

    var_dump((new DatetimeTool)->sub(date('d-m-Y H:i:s'), [0,1,0,0,10,0], 'd-m-Y'));

?>
lulzim at orav dot net 13-Sep-2017 08:44
This might be unexpected behavior:

<?php

$date1 = DateTime::createFromFormat('Y-m-d H:i:s', '2017-08-31 00:00:00');
$date1->modify('+1 month');

#or use the interval
#$date1->add(new DateInterval("P1M"));

#will produce 2017-10-1
#not 2017-09-30
divinity76+spam at gmail dot com 24-May-2017 02:24
if you'd like to print all the built-in formats,

<?php
foreach((new ReflectionClass('DateTime'))->getConstants() as $name=>$format){
    echo 'DateTime::'.$name.' -> '.date($format).PHP_EOL;
}
Ray.Paseur sometimes uses Gmail 02-Dec-2016 06:08
At PHP 7.1 the DateTime constructor incorporates microseconds when constructed from the current time.  Make your comparisons carefully, since two DateTime objects constructed one after another are now more likely to have different values.

http://php.net/manual/en/migration71.incompatible.php
jlh at gmx dot ch 18-Oct-2016 08:28
Note that the ISO8601 constant will not correctly parse all possible ISO8601 compliant formats, as it does not support fractional seconds. If you need to be strictly compliant to that standard you will have to write your own format.

Bug report #51950 has unfortunately be closed as "not a bug" even though it's a clear violation of the ISO8601 standard.
lucasfsmartins at gmail dot com 12-Jul-2016 07:39
A good way I did to work with millisecond is transforming the time in milliseconds.

function timeToMilliseconds($time) {
    $dateTime = new DateTime($time);
   
    $seconds = 0;
    $seconds += $dateTime->format('H') * 3600;
    $seconds += $dateTime->format('i') * 60;
    $seconds += $dateTime->format('s');
   
    $seconds = floatval($seconds . '.' . $dateTime->format('u'));
   
    return $seconds * 1000;
}
ph at jokerss dot com dot br 12-Feb-2016 02:57
Create function to convert GregorianDate to JulianDayCount

<?php

function dateJulian($date) {
        $dateTime = new DateTime($date);
        $limitDate = new DateTime('01-03-'.$dateTime->format('Y'));
        $diff = $dateTime->diff($limitDate);
        $soma = 1;
        if ($dateTime->format('L') && $diff->invert) {
                $soma = 2;
        }
        return ( (int) $dateTime->format('z')) + $soma;
}

echo PHP_EOL,dateJulian('01-03-2015'), PHP_EOL;
echo PHP_EOL,dateJulian('01-03-2016'), PHP_EOL;

/**
  * returns
  * 60
  * 61
  */

?>
michael at smith-li dot com 07-Jan-2016 06:47
DateTime supports microseconds since 5.2.2. This is mentioned in the documentation for the date function, but bears repeating here. You can create a DateTime with fractional seconds and retrieve that value using the 'u' format string.

<?php
// Instantiate a DateTime with microseconds.
$d = new DateTime('2011-01-01T15:03:01.012345Z');

// Output the microseconds.
echo $d->format('u'); // 012345

// Output the date with microseconds.
echo $d->format('Y-m-d\TH:i:s.u'); // 2011-01-01T15:03:01.012345
anthony at teamug dot net 13-Sep-2015 02:00
This is a great class, but unless you need to use it's more advanced features, I would stick to passing times around your scripts as Unix Time Stamps - maybe prefixing with "uts".
Otherwise you will simply be creating more lines of code with no benefit.
ryan at amst dot com 21-Aug-2015 08:09
It seems like, due to changes in the DateTimeZone class in PHP 5.5, when creating a date and specifying the timezone as a a string like 'EDT', then getting the timezone from the date object and trying to use that to set the timezone on a date object you will have problems but never know it.  Take the following code:

<?php
$date = new DateTime('2015-08-21 15:00:00 EDT') ;
$tz_string = $date->getTimezone()->getName() ;
$tz = new DateTimeZone($tz_string) ;
$date->setTimezone($tz) ;
?>

You would think this code should not change $date at all, but it does.  It seems like you can create a timezone object like 'EDT' but can't use those to set timezones properly.  The process, however does act like it's working without errors.
tdp 20-Jan-2015 11:17
Be aware of this behaviour:

<?php
$dt1 = new \DateTime( '2014/12/31' );
$dt1->modify( '-1 month' );
$m = (int) $dt1->format( 'm' );
var_dump( $m ); // still 12 !!!

$dt2 = new \DateTime( '2014/12/30' );
$dt2->modify( '-1 month' );
$m = (int) $dt2->format( 'm' );
var_dump( $m ); // 11
?>

The method modify( '-1 month' ) appear to remove 30 days, not to subtract 1 from the month and adjust the day (if needed).

In my opinion, the former date should be adjusted to 2014/11/30, that is, the last day in the previous month.
julie at earthshod dot co dot uk 29-Jan-2014 04:55
It isn't obvious from the above, but you can insert a letter of the alphabet directly into the date string by escaping it with a backslash in the format string.  Note that if you are using "double" speech marks around the format string, you will have to further escape each backslash with another backslash!  If you are using 'single' speech marks around the format string, then you only need one backslash.

For instance, to create a string like "Y2014M01D29T1633", you *could* use string concatenation like so:

<?php
    $dtstring = "Y" . date("Y", $when) . "M" . date("m", $when) . "D" . date("d", $when) . "T" . date("Hi", $when);
?>

but you could also escape the letters with backslashes like so:

<?php
    $dtstring1 = date('\YY\Mm\Dd\THi', $when);
    $dtstring2 = date("\\YY\\Mm\\Dd\\THi", $when);
?>

This method involves fewer function calls, so probably is slightly quicker; and also is immune to race conditions if you are not specifying the second argument.  [It's possible that you could evaluate date("d") just *before* midnight and date("H") just *after* midnight.  This will not give you the result you were expecting.]
stevenmattera at gmail dot com 10-Jan-2014 02:04
This caused some confusion with a blog I was working on and just wanted to make other people aware of this. If you use createFromFormat to turn a date into a timestamp it will include the current time. For example:

<?php
$publishDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('m/d/Y', '1/10/2014');
echo $publishDate->getTimestamp();
?>

Would not output the expected "1389312000" instead it would output something more like "1389344025". To fix this you would want to do:

<?php
$publishDate = DateTime::createFromFormat('m/d/Y', '1/10/2014');
$publishDate->setTime(0, 0, 0);
echo $publishDate->getTimestamp();
?>

I hope this helps someone!
James 09-Oct-2013 03:44
Be aware that DateTime may ignore fractional seconds for some formats, but not when using the ISO 8601 time format, as documented by this bug:

https://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=51950

$dateTime = DateTime::createFromFormat(
    DateTime::ISO8601,
    '2009-04-16T12:07:23.596Z'
);
// bool(false)
tim at timfennis dot com 01-Mar-2013 03:20
There is a subtle difference between the following two statments which causes JavaScript's Date object on iPhones to fail.

<?php
$objDateTime = new DateTime('NOW');
echo $objDateTime->format('c'); // ISO8601 formated datetime
echo $objDateTime->format(DateTime::ISO8601); // Another way to get an ISO8601 formatted string

/**
On my local machine this results in:

2013-03-01T16:15:09+01:00
2013-03-01T16:15:09+0100

Both of these strings are valid ISO8601 datetime strings, but the latter is not accepted by the constructor of JavaScript's date object on iPhone. (Possibly other browsers as well)
*/

?>

Our solution was to create the following constant on our DateHelper object.

<?php
class DateHelper
{
    /**
     * An ISO8601 format string for PHP's date functions that's compatible with JavaScript's Date's constructor method
     * Example: 2013-04-12T16:40:00-04:00
     *
     * PHP's ISO8601 constant doesn't add the colon to the timezone offset which is required for iPhone
    **/
    const ISO8601 = 'Y-m-d\TH:i:sP';
}
?>
marcio dot barbado at bdslabs dot com dot br 22-Mar-2012 06:22
DateTime class does not use locales so here I test and compare its formating with strftime() function's one:

    <?php
      // Under UNIX, command "$ locale -a" should provide you with your server's options.

      $data_do_mysql            = "2011-09-29 23:50:26";

      echo '<strong>' . "\$data_do_mysql" . '</strong>' . ":" . $data_do_mysql . "." . '<br />' .
           '<br />';

      $dataInicial            = new DateTime(trim($data_do_mysql));

      // setlocale() used with strftime().
      $meu_locale            = setlocale(LC_ALL, "pt_BR.utf8");
      $data_inicial            = strftime("%d de %b de %Y", strtotime(trim($data_do_mysql)));

      // Outputs:
      // $data_do_mysql formatada com a classe DateTime:29-Sep-2011.
      echo '<strong>' . "\$data_do_mysql" . '</strong>' . " formatada com a classe DateTime:" . $dataInicial->format('d-M-Y') . "." . '<br />' .
           '<br />';

      // Outputs:
      // $data_do_mysql formatada com a fun??o strftime():29 de Set de 2011.
      echo '<strong>' . "\$data_do_mysql" . '</strong>' . " formatada com a fun&ccedil;&atilde;o strftime():" . $data_inicial . "." . '<br />' .
           '<br />';

      // setlocale() fails :-(
      if (!$meu_locale)
        {
            echo "Prefiro usar DateTime.";
        }

      // Yay setlocale() :-D
      else
        {
            echo "Prefiro usar strftime().";
        }

      exit();
    ?>
nodweber at gmail dot com 19-Jul-2011 02:22
IF You want to create clone of $time, use clone..

<?php
  $now   = new DateTime;
  $clone = $now;        //this doesnot clone so:
  $clone->modify( '-1 day' );
 
  echo $now->format( 'd-m-Y' ), "\n", $clone->format( 'd-m-Y' );
  echo '----', "\n";

  // will print same.. if you want to clone make like this:
  $now   = new DateTime;
  $clone = clone $now;   
  $clone->modify( '-1 day' );
   
  echo $now->format( 'd-m-Y' ), "\n", $clone->format( 'd-m-Y' );
?>

Results:
18-07-2011
18-07-2011
----
19-07-2011
18-07-2011
giorgio dot liscio at email dot it 13-Aug-2010 10:24
please note that using

setTimezone
setTimestamp
setDate
setTime
etc..

will modify the original object, and the return value is $this

$original = new DateTime("now");

$modified = $original->setTimezone(new DateTimezone("europe/rome"));

echo $original === $modified ? "THE OBJECT IS THE SAME" : "OBJECTS ARE DIFFERENT";

so a datetime object is mutable

(Editors note: PHP 5.5 adds DateTimeImmutable which does not modify the original object, instead creating a new instance.)
bf at tbwb dot nl 10-Aug-2010 03:19
If you have timezone information in the time string you construct the DateTime object with, you cannot add an extra timezone in the constructor. It will ignore the timezone information in the time string:

$date = new DateTime("2010-07-05T06:00:00Z", new DateTimeZone("Europe/Amsterdam"));

will create a DateTime object set to "2010-07-05 06:00:00+0200" (+2 being the TZ offset for Europe/Amsterdam)

To get this done, you will need to set the timezone separately:

$date = new DateTime("2010-07-05T06:00:00Z");
$date->setTimeZone(new DateTimeZone("Europe/Amsterdam");

This will create a DateTime object set to "2010-07-05 08:00:00+0200"
ediathome 20-Mar-2010 01:21
If you need DateTime::createFromFormat functionality in versions <5.3.0 releases you might use the following basic class which can also be combined with Tom's class. It should work for most basic formats, however you should improve this function if you need more complex formats.

<?php
class DateClass extends DateTime{

public function getTimestamp(){
    return $this->format ("U");
}

/**
*    This function calculates the number of days between the first and the second date. Arguments must be subclasses of DateTime
**/
static function differenceInDays ($firstDate, $secondDate){
    $firstDateTimeStamp = $firstDate->format("U");
    $secondDateTimeStamp = $secondDate->format("U");
    $rv = round ((($firstDateTimeStamp - $secondDateTimeStamp))/86400);
    return $rv;
}

/**
* This function returns an object of DateClass from $time in format $format. See date() for possible values for $format
**/
static function createFromFormat ($format, $time){
    assert ($format!="");
    if($time==""){
        return new DateClass();
    }

    $regexpArray['Y'] = "(?P<Y>19|20\d\d)";       
    $regexpArray['m'] = "(?P<m>0[1-9]|1[012])";
    $regexpArray['d'] = "(?P<d>0[1-9]|[12][0-9]|3[01])";
    $regexpArray['-'] = "[-]";
    $regexpArray['.'] = "[\. /.]";
    $regexpArray[':'] = "[:]";           
    $regexpArray['space'] = "[\s]";
    $regexpArray['H'] = "(?P<H>0[0-9]|1[0-9]|2[0-3])";
    $regexpArray['i'] = "(?P<i>[0-5][0-9])";
    $regexpArray['s'] = "(?P<s>[0-5][0-9])";

    $formatArray = str_split ($format);
    $regex = "";

    // create the regular expression
    foreach($formatArray as $character){
        if ($character==" ") $regex = $regex.$regexpArray['space'];
        elseif (array_key_exists($character, $regexpArray)) $regex = $regex.$regexpArray[$character];
    }
    $regex = "/".$regex."/";

    // get results for regualar expression
    preg_match ($regex, $time, $result);

    // create the init string for the new DateTime
    $initString = $result['Y']."-".$result['m']."-".$result['d'];

// if no value for hours, minutes and seconds was found add 00:00:00
    if (isset($result['H'])) $initString = $initString." ".$result['H'].":".$result['i'].":".$result['s'];
    else {$initString = $initString." 00:00:00";}

    $newDate = new DateClass ($initString);
    return $newDate;
    }   
}

?>
gmblar+php at gmail dot com 24-Jan-2010 08:53
Small but powerful extension to DateTime

<?php

class Blar_DateTime extends DateTime {

    /**
     * Return Date in ISO8601 format
     *
     * @return String
     */
    public function __toString() {
        return $this->format('Y-m-d H:i');
    }

    /**
     * Return difference between $this and $now
     *
     * @param Datetime|String $now
     * @return DateInterval
     */
    public function diff($now = 'NOW') {
        if(!($now instanceOf DateTime)) {
            $now = new DateTime($now);
        }
        return parent::diff($now);
    }

    /**
     * Return Age in Years
     *
     * @param Datetime|String $now
     * @return Integer
     */
    public function getAge($now = 'NOW') {
        return $this->diff($now)->format('%y');
    }

}

?>

Usage:

<?php

$birthday = new Blar_DateTime('1879-03-14');

// Example 1
echo $birthday;
// Result: 1879-03-14 00:00

// Example 2
echo '<p>Albert Einstein would now be ', $birthday->getAge(), ' years old.</p>';
// Result: <p>Albert Einstein would now be 130 years old.</p>

// Example 3
echo '<p>Albert Einstein would now be ', $birthday->diff()->format('%y Years, %m Months, %d Days'), ' old.</p>';
// Result: <p>Albert Einstein would now be 130 Years, 10 Months, 10 Days old.</p>

// Example 4
echo '<p>Albert Einstein was on 2010-10-10 ', $birthday->getAge('2010-10-10'), ' years old.</p>';
// Result: <p>Albert Einstein was on 2010-10-10 131 years old.</p>

?>
tom at r dot je 10-Jun-2009 08:00
If you're stuck on a PHP 5.1 system (unfortunately one of my clients is on a rather horrible webhost who claims they cannot upgrade php) you can use this as a quick workaround:

<?php
if (!class_exists('DateTime')) {
class DateTime {
    public $date;
   
    public function __construct($date) {
        $this->date = strtotime($date);
    }
   
    public function setTimeZone($timezone) {
        return;
    }
   
    private function __getDate() {
        return date(DATE_ATOM, $this->date);   
    }
   
    public function modify($multiplier) {
        $this->date = strtotime($this->__getDate() . ' ' . $multiplier);
    }
   
    public function format($format) {
        return date($format, $this->date);
    }
}
}
?>

it is NOT perfect. Timezones and DST are not supported, but if you just need compatible basic functions this works. Feel free to complete this so it's compatible with the 5.2 datetime object.