Convert parts of a string to date components, noted by a percent sign (%)

gistfile1.php

<?php
/* ----------------------------
Parse a string with percent-signed wildcards, where the wildcards are PHP date characters.

Example:
  $string = "Today is %F %j%S"
  Returns: Today is January 1st
*/
function parse_date($string, $date = false) {
  if ( !$date ) $date = time();
  
  // Get an array of all matches
  // The string of random letters are all PHP Date() characters
  preg_match_all('/\%[dDjlNSwzWFmMntLoYyaABgGhHisueIOPTZcrU]/', $string, $all_matches);
  
  // Look 2-deep for matches
  foreach( (array) $all_matches as $local_match) {
    foreach( (array) $local_match as $match) {
      $char = str_replace('%', '', $match);  // Remove % symbol
      $val = date($char, $date); // Convert date character to date value
      
      // Update our string, replacing the first occurence
      $string = preg_replace( "/{$match}/", $val, $string, 1);  
    }
  }
  
  return $string;
}

<?php
$var = "Today is %F %j%S";

$the_date = parse_date($var);

print_r($the_date);

// Output:
// Today is May 10th