Correct way of formatting dates for output in node theming

Question

I am theming a node where I need to show the created date. Since Drupal stores it as timestamp, what is the best method to retrieve it? I have found this post: http://drupal.org/node/101993. But the problem is that whe using this...

<?php 
print date("D, j M, Y \a\\t G:i", $node->changed);
?>

... it delivers me the content in English. My portal default language is Portuguese. Is there a Drupal function that will deliver the timestamp as a regular date that takes into account the user's selected language? And that maybe takes into account the preformatted dates set in the portal configuration? Thank you.

Answer 1

Instead of date(), try using format_date()

It has an otional last parameter $langcode that tells it what language code to use for the date.