Formatting
There a few options available for formatting your date object. The easist way is to use the format() method:
$date->format("Y-m-d");
This method accepts all the format characters supported by the php date() method.
If the result looks like a number then it will be returned as an integer, otherwise it will return it as a string.
If the result is required as a particular type (string/numeric) there are methods available for this:
$date->numeric("Ymd");
$date->string("Y-m-d");
If you just need a unix timestamp then there is a method for doing so:
$date->timestamp();