Magento: How to get current date in magento email template - magento

Question

How can I get Current date in Magento email template?
{{var dateAndTime}} doesn't work. I need to get current date in which the email is sent.

Answer 1

You have 2 options.
Option 1. is to rewrite the method that sends the e-mail and pass the current date as a parameter.
Let's say for example that you want to show the date in the order e-mail.
For that you will need to rewrite the Mage_Sales_Model_Order::sendNewOrderEmail method.
You need to change this:
$mailer->setTemplateParams(array(
'order' => $this,
'billing' => $this->getBillingAddress(),
'payment_html' => $paymentBlockHtml
)
);
To this:
$mailer->setTemplateParams(array(
'order' => $this,
'billing' => $this->getBillingAddress(),
'payment_html' => $paymentBlockHtml,
'dateAndTime' => Mage::getModel('core/date')->date('Y-m-d H:i:s'), //change format as needed.
)
);
Then you will be able to use {{var dateAndTime}} in your new order email template.
This is handy if you want to use your date and time in only one template.
If you want a more general case you need to create your own directive see option 2.
Option 2 creating your own {{}} directive.
Let's say that you want in every e-mail to use {{dateAndTime}} to print to current date and time.
You need to rewrite the class Mage_Widget_Model_Template_Filter and add a new method to it.
See this detailed explanation about how to do it.
Your new method should look like this:
public function dateAndTimeDirective($construction) {
return Mage::getModel('core/date')->date('Y-m-d H:i:s');
}
You can even take it up a notch and be able to pass the date format as a parameter like this:
{{dateAndTime format="Y-m-d"}}
in this case your method that handles the directive should look like this:
public function dateAndTimeDirective($construction) {
$params = $this->_getIncludeParameters($construction[2]);
$format = isset($params['format']) ? $params['format'] : 'Y-m-d H:i:s'
return Mage::getModel('core/date')->date($format);
}

Answer 2

Go to your email template from admin panel. Use block directive as follows
current date is :
{{block type='core/template' area='frontend' template='page/html/date.phtml'}}
Now create a new file date.phtml in your template as follows
app/design/frontend/yourtheme/yourtemplate/page/html/date.phtml
Add following code in php tags (use php date function and echo current date i.e date('d-m-Y'))
<pre><code>
$date = date('d-m-Y');
echo $date;
</code></pre>
Hope this helps!