substr不工作？ PHP

Question

Unfortunately I can't point you to a live example. But I've got a form that submits a bunch of data to the database.

I retrieve the 'date' field with

genesis_custom_field('date')

and the output date is "mm/dd/yyyy" e.g., 02/19/2012

so shouldn't

echo substr(genesis_custom_field('date'), 0, 2) . '<-M<br />'

output "02"

instead, it's outputting the full date format, "02/19/2012".

INTENTS AND PURPOSES

for intents and purposes, here's the code sample.

// The Query
$reviews_query = new WP_Query('showposts=1');

// The Loop
while ( $reviews_query->have_posts() ) : $reviews_query->the_post();

echo substr(genesis_custom_field('date'), 0, 2) . '<-M<br />';

endwhile;
// Reset Post Data
wp_reset_postdata();

with the intended output of

02<-M

but I'm getting

02/19/2012<-M

Answer 1

The function genesis_custom_field actually echoes the value rather than return it which is why substr isn't working. You are basically calling substr on a null value.

Instead use the function genesis_get_custom_field if you want the value returned so you can modify it.