I want to format dates in a couple of different ways, depending on where it is showing on my site. I know the default format can be set under Options>General>Date Format, but some of these don't work. For example, setting the style "02/25/2008" shows up as "minute#/25/2008" for every photo, no matter the month it was taken (IE: 0/22/2018). The same happens with style "02/25/18" - for the months - it's giving the minute, not the month.
Additionally, as I do want different styles in different places, I have been using: `<?php echo printImageDate($before = '', $format = "ALL SORTS OF DIFFERENT THINGS HERE"); ?>` But I can't figure out the month. The codes listed here: https://www.php.net/manual/en/function.date.php do not work correctly (this is the link from the Date Format description on the general options page). For example, the code "m.d.y" gives the month as the minute just as it does when selecting the universal date format under Options>General>Date Format.
Am I missing the true code for month (for both single and double digit, as in 1/25/2008 and 01/25/2008)? All my guesses have been wrong. If I try "n" (which should be the short version of the month, single digit for the first 9 months) it causes the whole date to fail. "m" seems to be minutes, not month, despite the lack of a nearby "h" for hours.
In addition to not getting the date codes to work, I can't get escapes to work either as exampled on the php site to format something like Wednesday the 15th, you would use`<?php echo date('l \t\h\e jS'); ?>`. (I get "Saturday \11 30" for what should say "Saturday the 3rd" (for a photo from 11/3/2018)
Any thoughts on what I am doing wrong?