This date library extends Carbon with multi-language support. Methods such as format, diffForHumans and the new timespan, will now be translated based on your locale.

Install using composer:

composer require jenssegers/date

This package is compatible with Laravel 4 (but not limited to). If Laravel is detected, the language library from Laravel will be used instead of an own implementation.

Add the service provider in app/config/app.php:

'Jenssegers\Date\DateServiceProvider',

And add an alias:

'Date'            => 'Jenssegers\Date\Date',

This package contains language files for the following languages:

• Arabic
• Basque
• Brazilian Portuguese
• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Croatian
• Chinese Simplified
• Chinese Traditional
• Czech
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• Esperanto
• Finnish (incomplete)
• French
• German
• Greek
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Italian
• Japanese
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Romanian
• Russian
• Thai
• Serbian
• Slovak
• Slovenian
• Spanish
• Swedish (incomplete)
• Turkish
• Vietnamese

You can easily add new languages by adding a new language file to the lang directory. These language entries support pluralization. By using a "pipe" character, you may separate the singular and plural forms of a string:

'hour'      => '1 hour|:count hours',
'minute'    => '1 minute|:count minutes',
'second'    => '1 second|:count seconds',

If you are using Laravel, the locale set in app/config/app.php will be used to select the correct language file. If not, you can manually set the current locale using:

Date::setLocale('nl');

Some languages have a different unit translation when they are used in combination with a suffix like 'ago'. For those situations you can add additional translations by adding the suffix to the unit as a key:

'year'          => '1 Jahr|:count Jahre',
'year_ago'      => '1 Jahr|:count Jahren',

There is also a generator.php script that can be used to quickly output day and month translations for a specific locale. If you want to add a new language, this can speed up the process:

`php generator.php nl_NL`

NOTE! If you are adding languages, please check the rules about the capitalization of month and day names: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_Wiktionary_pages#Capitalization_of_month_names

The Date class extends Carbon methods such as format and diffForHumans so that they are translated based on your locale:

Lang::setLocale('nl');

echo Date::now()->format('l j F Y H:i:s'); // zondag 28 april 2013 21:58:16

echo Date::parse('-1 day')->diffForHumans(); // 1 dag geleden

The Date class also added some aliases and additional methods such as: ago which is an alias for diffForHumans, and the timespan method:

echo $date->timespan(); // 3 months, 1 week, 1 day, 3 hours, 20 minutes

You can use this library outside of the Laravel framework. The library contains a fallback translator class that will be used if Laravel is not detected. The only thing that is different, is that you need to set the locale on the Date class directly, instead of the Lang class:

Date::setLocale('nl');

echo Date::now()->format('l j F Y H:i:s'); // zondag 28 april 2013 21:58:16

Carbon is the library the Date class is based on. All of the original Carbon operations are still available, check out https://github.com/briannesbitt/Carbon for more information.

You can create Date objects just like the DateTime object (http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.construct.php):

$date = new Date();
$date = new Date('2000-01-31');
$date = new Date('2000-01-31 12:00:00');

// With time zone
$date = new Date('2000-01-31', new DateTimeZone('Europe/Brussels'));

You can skip the creation of a DateTimeZone object:

$date = new Date('2000-01-31', 'Europe/Brussels');

Create Date objects from a relative format (http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.relative.php):

$date = new Date('now');
$date = new Date('today');
$date = new Date('+1 hour');
$date = new Date('next monday');

This is also available using these static methods:

$date = Date::parse('now');
$date = Date::now();

Creating a Date from a timestamp:

$date = new Date(1367186296);

Or from an existing date or time:

$date = new Date::createFromDate(2000, 1, 31);
$date = new Date::createFromTime(12, 0, 0);
$date = new Date::create(2000, 1, 31, 12, 0, 0);

You can format a Date object like the DateTime object (http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php):

echo Date::now()->format('Y-m-d'); // 2000-01-31

The Date object can be cast to a string:

echo Date::now(); // 2000-01-31 12:00:00

Get a human readable output (alias for diffForHumans):

echo $date->ago(); // 5 days ago

Calculate a timespan:

$date = new Date('+1000 days');
echo Date::now()->timespan($date);
// 2 years, 8 months, 3 weeks, 5 days

// or even
echo Date::now()->timespan('+1000 days');

Get years since date:

$date = new Date('-10 years');
echo $date->age; // 10

$date = new Date('+10 years');
echo $date->age; // -10

You can manipulate by using the add and sub methods, with relative intervals (http://www.php.net/manual/en/datetime.formats.relative.php):

$yesterday = Date::now()->sub('1 day');
$tomorrow  = Date::now()->add('1 day');

// ISO 8601
$date = Date::now()->add('P2Y4DT6H8M');

You can access and modify all date attributes as an object:

$date->year = 2013:
$date->month = 1;
$date->day = 31;

$date->hour = 12;
$date->minute = 0;
$date->second = 0;