Relative Date Merge Tag Modifier Gravity Forms

Tutorials » GravityWP BV » Relative Date Merge Tag Modifier Gravity Forms

Do you want to display or use a Gravity Forms Date Field value as another relative date, for example tomorrow or week later, the first day of next month or a certain amount of days ago? With the GravityWP – Advanced Merge Tags Add-on for Gravity Forms you get a Merge Tag Modifier to easily do that.

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Demo

All

Date

Text

gwp_length

gwp_reverse

gwp_urlencode

gwp_word_count

gwp_date_field-timezone

gwp_date_field-relative_dates

Date(Required)

Text(Required)

Paragraph Text(Required)

Real-time word count

Price to translate

List

Column 1

Column 2

Column 3

Modify timezones

Timezone Europe/Amsterdam	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Europe/Amsterdam”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Europe/Amsterdam”}
Timezone America/New_York	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”America/New_York”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”America/New_York”}
Timezone Europe/Moscow	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Europe/Moscow”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Europe/Moscow”}
Timezone Asia/Kolkata	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Asia/Kolkata”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Asia/Kolkata”}
Timezone Etc/GMT	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Etc/GMT”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”Etc/GMT”}
Timezone using offset value +0200	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”+0200″}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format timezone=”+0200″}

Modify date

Date Field (m/d/Y)	{Date:1}	{Date:1}
First day of next month (m/d/Y)	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”first day of next month” format=”m/d/Y”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”first day of next month” format=”m/d/Y”}
Next Monday (m/d/Y)	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”next monday” format=”m/d/Y”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”next monday” format=”m/d/Y”}
Monday this week (m/d/Y)	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”monday this week” format=”m/d/Y”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”monday this week” format=”m/d/Y”}
Third Monday (m/d/Y)	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”third monday” format=”m/d/Y”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”third monday” format=”m/d/Y”}
Seven weekdays later (m/d/Y)	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”+7 weekdays” format=”m/d/Y”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”+7 weekdays” format=”m/d/Y”}
Date Field (Y-m-d H:i:s)	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format format=”Y-m-d H:i:s}
Midnight of tomorrow (Y-m-d H:i:s	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”tomorrow” format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”tomorrow” format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}
Two hours later(Y-m-d H:i:s	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”+2 hours” format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”+2 hours” format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}
Twenty seconds later(Y-m-d H:i:s	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”+20 seconds” format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}	{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify=”+20 seconds” format=”Y-m-d H:i:s”}

Different datetime formats

Timestamp (U)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”U”}
A full textual representation of the day of the week (l)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”l”}
A textual representation of a day, three letters (D)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”D”}
ISO 8601 week number of year, weeks starting on Monday (W)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”W”}
A full textual representation of a month, such as January or March (F)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”F”}
ISO 8601 date (c)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”c”}
RFC 2822 formatted date (r)	{gwp_date_field id=1 format=”r”}

Examples Modifiers:

:gwp_remove_accents	{Text:5:gwp_remove_accents}
:gwp_urlencode	{Text:5:gwp_urlencode}
:gwp_length	{Text:5:gwp_length}
:gwp_word_count	{Text:5:gwp_word_count}
:gwp_case to=upper	{Text:5:gwp_case to=upper}
:gwp_case to=lower	{Text:5:gwp_case to=lower}
:gwp_case to=lower_first	{Text:5:gwp_case to=lower_first}
:gwp_case to=upper_first	{Text:5:gwp_case to=upper_first}
:gwp_case to=upper_words	{Text:5:gwp_case to=upper_words}

Example value	Modifier result
{Text:5}	{Text:5:gwp_length}
{Paragraph Text:8}	{Paragraph Text:8:gwp_length}

Example value	Modifier result
{Text:5}	{Text:5:gwp_word_count}
{Paragraph Text:8}	{Paragraph Text:8:gwp_word_count}

Example value	Modifier result
{Text:5}	{Text:5:gwp_reverse}
{Paragraph Text:8}	{Paragraph Text:8:gwp_reverse}

Example value	Modifier result
{Text:5}	{Text:5:gwp_urlencode}
{Paragraph Text:8}	{Paragraph Text:8:gwp_urlencode}
{Paragraph Text:15}	{Paragraph Text:15:gwp_urlencode}

Get Advanced Merge Tags

Modifier gwp_date_format

You can use the gwp_date_format Modifier to accomplish modifying the Merge Tag value (output) of a Date Field (and even a Text Field which contains a correctly formatted date). See for example the code below, where the Modifier takes the filled in value in the form and modifies the output to the first day of next month and shows the result in the format m/d/Y:

{Date Field:5:gwp_date_format modify="first day of next month" format="m/d/Y"}

Configuring relative date formats

Check out the documentation on Relative Formats on php.net. We’ll give you a brief ‘How To’ here.

To configure the relative date, you have to fill something after ‘modify=’ in the Merge Tag Modifier. You can make your own combination using the tools below:

dayname	sunday \| monday \| tuesday \| wednesday \| thursday \| friday \| saturday \| sun \| mon \| tue \| wed \| thu \| fri \| sat
ordinal	first \| second \| third \| fourth \| fifth \| sixth \| seventh \| eighth \| ninth \| tenth \| eleventh \| twelfth \| next \| last \| previous \| this
unit	sec \| second \| min \| minute \| hour \| day \| fortnight \| forthnight \| month \| year \| weeks \| daytext

Make combinations

`modify="+1 month"`	Date + 1 month
`modify="last day of +1 month'"`	Date + 1 month > last day of that month
`modify="+2 weeks"`	Date + 2 weeks
`modify="-2 weeks"`	Date minus (-) 2 weeks (two weeks ago)
`modify="2 weeks ago"`	Date minus (-) 2 weeks (two weeks ago)
`modify="+3 weekdays"`	Date + 3 weekdays (skips the weekend)

Examples of relative dates possible.

Skip the weekend using weekdays

You can also use ‘weekday’ or ‘weekdays’ in the Merge Tag Modifier. In that case it will skip Saturday and Sunday (skip the weekend). For example if you use a date that is on Friday and you use in the Merge Tag Modifier ‘+1 weekday’, it will give you the date of Monday. If you use the same relative date on Monday, it will return Tuesday.

{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify="+1 weekday" format="m/d/Y"}

{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify="+3 weekdays" format="m/d/Y"}

Change the output date format

You can use the gwp_date_format Modifier in combination with other settings, like output format. We’ve included that in the examples before.

{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify="+3 weekdays" format="Y-m-d H:i:s"}

Change the timezone

You can also directly change the timezone of the output. Use it in combination with the timezone setting:

{Date Field:1:gwp_date_format modify="+3 weekdays" format="Y-m-d H:i:s" timezone="Europe/Amsterdam"}

Read more about changing timezones in our tutorial: Modifying Timezone Gravity Forms Date Field.

Date Created

You can also use the modify settings on the date the Gravity Forms entry was created. Use for that the gwp_date_created Merge Tag (no need to add an id, because this is meta data in the Entry):

{gwp_date_created modify="+3 weekdays" format="d-m-Y"}

Date Updated

You can also use the modify settings on the date the Gravity Forms entry was last updated. Use for that the gwp_date_updated Merge Tag (no need to add an id, because this is meta data in the Entry):

{gwp_date_updated modify="+3 weekdays" format="d-m-Y"}

FAQ relative dates

Does the gwp_date_format Merge Tag Modifier changes the value of the field in the Gravity Forms Entry?

No, the Merge Tag only displays the changed date (the relative date) on the place you use the Merge Tag Modifier. You can use the Merge Tag Modifier inside a Gravity Flow Update Fields or Edit Entry step to capture the output.

Can I also change the Merge Tag ouput of the Date Created of the Gravity Forms Entry?

Yes, you can use the gwp_date_created Merge Tag to modify the output of the date an Entry was created.

Can I change the Merge output of the date the Gravity Forms Entry was last updated?

Yes, for that you can use the gwp_date_updated Merge Tag.

Why do I have to fill in the Field ID in the gwp_date_field Merge Tag?

The Field ID points to the field which contains the filled in (or selected) Date you want to modify.

Can I use any relative date functionality to modify the Date?

Yes, for all possibilities of modifying the date, you can check out the documentation on Relative Formats on php.net.

Advanced Merge Tags
This Gravity Forms Add-On adds extra Merge Tag modifiers (and a lot of power). From the most common used functions like capitalize and length to changing date formats.

List Number Format
With this Gravity Forms Add-on you can change List Field columns into a number field, do calculations within a row or column. Extra merge tags are available with total counts of columns.

JWT Prefill
Create JSON Webtokens to populate fields in your Gravity Form. With a secure key you can validate the data you don’t want to be tampered with.

Advanced Number Field
Functionality for Number Fields, like rounding or only absolute numbers, fixed point notation, range calculation, custom units like % or m2 & show as slider.

Field to Entries
Create entries based on Checkboxes & Multi Select choices & List Field rows.

List Dropdown
Add a Dropdown Select with choices to a column or multiple columns in a Gravity Forms List Field.

Update Multiple Entries
Trigger the update of multiple entries in a target form by submitting an entry in a trigger form.

List Datepicker
Add a Datepicker with calendar select to a column or multiple columns in a Gravity Forms List Field.

List Text
Add features like textarea, placeholder and custom validation to a column or multiple columns in a Gravity Forms List Field.

API Connector
Connect Gravity Forms to External API's: Query the API using form field values and automatically fill other form fields with the API response.

Entry to Database
Integrates Gravity Forms with internal or external databases, offering flexible mapping of form fields to database columns and real-time synchronization between entries and database rows.

TutorialRelative Date Merge Tag Modifier Gravity Forms