AP Style Date Shortcode

After a few iterations to get the right combo, another win for ChatGPT. The prompt:

Create a WordPress shortcode that returns the published date or modified date of a post in an Associated Press style date format with months longer than five letters abbreviated.

The following code allows you to use the shortcode ap_date to show the published date in AP style format or ap_date type="modified" to show the modified date in AP style format.

To create a WordPress shortcode that returns the published date or modified date of a post in Associated Press (AP) style date format, you need to add the following code to your theme’s functions.php file or your code snippet manager:

<?php
function ap_style_date($atts) {
    $atts = shortcode_atts(
        array(
            'type' => 'published',
        ), $atts, 'ap_date'
    );

    global $post;
    $date = '';

    if ($atts['type'] === 'modified') {
        $date = get_the_modified_date('Y-m-d', $post->ID);
    } else {
        $date = get_the_date('Y-m-d', $post->ID);
    }

    $date_obj = new DateTime($date);
    $month = $date_obj->format('F');
    $day = $date_obj->format('j');
    $year = $date_obj->format('Y');

    $months_to_abbreviate = array('January', 'February', 'August', 'September', 'October', 'November', 'December');
    $month_abbreviations = array('Jan.', 'Feb.', 'Aug.', 'Sept.', 'Oct.', 'Nov.', 'Dec.');

    if (in_array($month, $months_to_abbreviate)) {
        $month = str_replace($months_to_abbreviate, $month_abbreviations, $month);
    }

    return $month . ' ' . $day . ', ' . $year;
}

add_shortcode('ap_date', 'ap_style_date');