Making Dates Work in Drupal Using Twig: A Step-by-Step Guide

Introduction

Drupal is a great tool for building websites, and it comes with a cool feature called Twig that helps make websites look good. In this blog, we’ll talk about using Twig in Drupal to handle dates easily.

Understanding Twig and Drupal Date

Twig is like a helper for making web pages look nice, and Drupal uses it to help developers create good-looking websites. When it comes to dealing with dates in Drupal, Twig has a trick called the ‘date’ filter that makes it easy to show dates the way you want.

Basic Date Formatting

Let’s start with the basics. You can use the ‘date’ filter in your website code to show a date in a special way using Twig. For example:

{{ node.createdtime | date("F j, Y") }}

In this example, `node.createdtime` is when something was created, and the `date(“F j, Y”)` part makes it look like “Month day, Year.” It’s a simple way to show dates in a cool style.

Localized Date Formats

Drupal is used worldwide, so your website might be seen by people from different places. Twig lets you easily show dates the way people like them. Use the ‘format_date’ thing like this:

{{ node.createdtime | format_date('medium') }}

This makes sure the date looks right for the person using your website, no matter where they are.

Relative Time

Another cool thing you can do with Drupal Date in Twig shows how much time has passed since something happened. Instead of saying the exact date, you can say things like “2 days ago” or “1 hour ago.” Here’s how you do it:

{{ node.createdtime | time_diff }}

This makes your website look modern by showing time in a way people easily understand.

Custom Date Formats

If you want to get fancy and make a date look exactly how you like it, Twig lets you do that, too. You can create your special date format like this:

{{ node.createdtime | date("l, F j, Y \\a\\t g:i a") }}

This example shows the day of the week, the month, the day, the year, and the time, all in a cool way, like “Monday, May 15, 2023, at 9:00 am.”

Conclusion