Seems like PHP 5 added some cool stuff, but I can't find the API for it.

For example, I see reference to a DateTime class in the date/time functions in the php documentation, but no link to the DateTime API. Is it something in pecl? or pear? What did I miss?

Thanks in advance!

    PS: I ran this...

    <?php
header('Content-Type: text/plain');
Reflection::export(new ReflectionClass('DateTime'));

    ...which output this...

    Class [ <internal:date> class DateTime ] {

  - Constants [11] {
    Constant [ string ATOM ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sP }
    Constant [ string COOKIE ] { l, d-M-y H:i:s T }
    Constant [ string ISO8601 ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sO }
    Constant [ string RFC822 ] { D, d M y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC850 ] { l, d-M-y H:i:s T }
    Constant [ string RFC1036 ] { D, d M y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC1123 ] { D, d M Y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC2822 ] { D, d M Y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string RFC3339 ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sP }
    Constant [ string RSS ] { D, d M Y H:i:s O }
    Constant [ string W3C ] { Y-m-d\TH:i:sP }
  }

  - Static properties [0] {
  }

  - Static methods [0] {
  }

  - Properties [0] {
  }

  - Methods [9] {
    Method [ <internal, ctor> public method __construct ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method format ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method modify ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method getTimezone ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method setTimezone ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method getOffset ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method setTime ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method setDate ] {
    }

    Method [ <internal> public method setISODate ] {
    }
  }
}

      In other words, the functions prefixed with "datetime_" are procedural versions of the methods. E.g., [man]date_format[/man] is described as

      string date_format ( DateTime $object , string $format )
      string DateTime::format ( string $format )

      So you can either create a DateTime object and pass it as an argument to date_format(), or you can call its format() method - either would do.

        In a slight side note; What does the <internal> mean in the output from the reflection class?

            Method [ <internal> public method setTime ] {
    }

        Can you have external methods?

          I'm not sure what it means, but from some of the examples on the [man]reflection[/man] page, the implication is that the alternative to "internal" is "user-defined".

            In other words, the method is implemented internally in C as part of the extension, rather than as part of a class written in PHP.

              7 days later

              On a vaguely similar note, this does not seem possible:

              function do_something() throws Exception 
{
    // ...
}

              and the alternative might be simply this:

              /**
 * @throws Exception
 */
function do_something()
{
  // ...
}

              which is fine for documentation, but doesn't "enforce" the contract.

              Can anyone point me in the right direction here if I'm wrong? Thanks.

                I don't think there is a way of enforcing it. I'm quite glad of that otherwise before we knew it we'd be programming Java.

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