the_date() – Function | Developer.WordPress.org

Displays or retrieves the date of the post (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

string|void String if retrieving.

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 of the post, 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;
	}
}

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Hooks

apply_filters( ‘the_date’, string $the_date, string $format, string $before, string $after ): Filters the date of the post, for display.

Uses	Description
get_the_date()`wp-includes/general-template.php`	Retrieves the date of the post.
is_new_day()`wp-includes/functions.php`	Determines whether the publish date of the current post in the loop is different from the publish date of the previous post in the loop.
apply_filters()`wp-includes/plugin.php`	Calls the callback functions that have been added to a filter hook.

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Changelog

Version	Description
0.71	Introduced.

User Contributed Notes

Skip to note 6 content

Codex 10 years ago

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Date as Year, Month, Date in Heading
Displays the date using the ‘2007-07-23’ format (ex: 2004-11-30), inside an <h2> tag.
```
<?php the_date( 'Y-m-d', '<h2>', '</h2>' ); ?>
```
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Codex 10 years ago

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Default Usage
Displays the date using defaults.
```
<?php the_date(); ?>
```
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Codex 10 years ago

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Date in Heading Using $my_date Variable
Returns the date in the default format inside an <h2> tag and assigns it to the $my_date variable. The variable’s value is then displayed with the PHP echo command.
```
$my_date = the_date( '', '<h2>', '</h2>', false );
echo $my_date;
```
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Ruhul Amin 4 years ago

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As stated in the documentation if there are multiple posts from the same day, it will only show once.
To show the date for posts published under same day, we should use the template tag the_time() or get_the_date() with a date-specific format string.
```
<?php echo get_the_date(); ?> 
// get_the_date() return the date doesn't echo the date, so have to echo to show it

// or use the_time() with date-specific format
<?php the_time( 'd F Y' ); ?>
```
Both functions takes an optional parameter which follows the PHP Date Format
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Ibrahim khalil 4 years ago

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//add a specific date format with your loop

//example format: November 10, 2021. here You can see date Format String Examples::
```
<?php the_time( 'F j, Y' );?>
```
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the_date( string $format = '', string $before = '', string $after = '', bool $display = true ): string|void

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