How to format datetime most easily in PHP?

Question

To change 2009-12-09 13:32:15 to 09/12/2009

Answer 1

 $long_date = '2009-12-09 13:32:15';

 $epoch_date = strtotime($long_date);

 $short_date = date('m/d/Y', $epoch_date);

The above is not the shortest way of doing it, but having the long date as an epoch timestamp ensures that you can reuse the original long date to get other date format outputs, like if you wanted to go back and have just the time somewhere else.