PHP, date(“DATE_COOKIE”) echoing odd result

Question

Code:

echo ("<br><br>The date is: " . date("DATE_COOKIE"));

Result:

The date is: ThuPMUTCE_C+0000+0000K0E

Question:
Can anyone explain this odd result? Maybe I am using the date wrong. I looked at the referenced on W3 Schools .

Answer 1

As Sammitch said in a comment on my question, To avoid this odd result don't put quotes around constants.
In other words I had to remove the quotes from the DATE_COOKIE.

Answer 2

To get a better result, use new DateTime(DATE_COOKIE) or new DateTime(COOKIE) . That function return a datetime in a format like: Monday, 15-Aug-2005 15:52:01 UTC .

Here you can get more help The DateTime class