Change output of DateTime in json_encode

Question

Is somehow possible to change output of json_encode(['date' => $dateTimeObj])?

Now it prints

{
    "date": {
        "date": "2016-10-27 11:23:52.000000",
        "timezone_type": 3,
        "timezone": "Europe/Paris"    
    }
}

I would like to have output like this

{
    "date": "2016-10-27T11:23:52+00:00"
}

My first idea was to create my own DateTime class which will extends DateTime and override jsonSerialize, but DateTime does not implement JsonSerializable interface and __toString did not help too.

I'm using PHP 7.0.8.

I meant something like this

<?php    
MyDateTime extends \DateTime implements jsonSerialize 
{
    public function jsonSerialize() // this is never called
    {
       return $this->format("c");
    }
}

$datetime = new MyDatetime();

$output = [
    'date' => $datetime;  // want to avoid $datetime->format("c") or something like this everywhere
];

json_encode($output);

This code now output

{
    "date": {
        "date": "2016-10-27 11:23:52.000000",
        "timezone_type": 3,
        "timezone": "Europe/Paris"    
    }
}

I would like to have

{
    "date": "2016-10-27T11:23:52+00:00"
}

json_encode() does not manipulate any data you give it. If you put the date into the object/array you are encoding the way you want to see it it will stay that way. So fix the code that adds the date — RiggsFolly
– RiggsFolly, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 10:59
Basically… manually format the date into a string before you json_encode it. — deceze
– deceze ♦, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 11:39
@deceze yes, it is probably the only way. I have to return date for articles, comments, threads... and more... So I thought it will be possible to convert it somehow automatically at one place. — LiTe
– LiTe, Commented Oct 27, 2016 at 11:54
what is the format for that type of date 2016-10-27 11:23:52.000000, I'm guessing yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss ??? what's the last .000000 ? — Christopher Francisco
– Christopher Francisco, Commented Jan 19, 2017 at 15:52
Microseconds. They are added since some 5.x version of the PHP. This is Y-m-d H:i:s.u format according to us1.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php — LiTe
– LiTe, Commented Jan 23, 2017 at 13:00

Viktor · Accepted Answer · 2017-02-12 17:37:52Z

26

After changing a few details, notably the interface name, your code works just fine for me on PHP 7.0.14.

<?php

class MyDateTime extends \DateTime implements \JsonSerializable
{
    public function jsonSerialize()
    {
       return $this->format("c");
    }
}

$datetime = new MyDatetime();

$output = [
    'date' => $datetime,
];

echo json_encode($output);
// Outputs: {"date":"2017-02-12T17:34:36+00:00"}

answered Feb 12, 2017 at 17:37

Viktor

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1 Comment

LiTe Over a year ago

OMG, shame on me. Thank you!

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