For formatting of outputs Yii provides a formatter class to make data more readable for users.
[[yii\i18n\Formatter]] is a helper class that is registered as an [application component](structure-application-components.md) named `formatter` by default.
It provides a set of methods for data formatting purpose such as date/time values, numbers and other commonly used formats in a localized way.
The formatter can be used in two different ways.
1. Using the formatting methods (all formatter methods prefixed with `as`) directly:
```php
echoYii::$app->formatter->asDate('2014-01-01','long');// output: January 1, 2014
echo Yii::$app->formatter->asDate('2014-01-01'); // output: January 1, 2014
Yii::$app->formatter->locale = 'de-DE';
echo Yii::$app->formatter->asDate('2014-01-01'); // output: 1. Januar 2014
Yii::$app->formatter->locale = 'ru-RU';
echo Yii::$app->formatter->asDate('2014-01-01'); // output: 1 января 2014 г.
```
> Note that formatting may differ between different versions of the ICU library compiled with PHP and also based on the fact whether the
> [PHP intl extension](http://php.net/manual/en/book.intl.php) is installed or not. So to ensure your website works with the same output
> in all environments it is recommended to install the PHP intl extension in all environments and verify that the version of the ICU library
> is the same. See also: [Setting up your PHP environment for internationalization](tutorial-i18n.md#setup-environment).
Configuring the formatter <a name="configuring-format"></a>
-------------------------
The default formats used by the formatter methods can be adjusted using the properties of the [[yii\i18n\Formatter|formatter class]].
You can adjust these values application wide by configuring the `formatter` component in your [application config](concept-configurations.md#application-configurations).
An example configuration is shown in the following.
For more details about the available properties check out the [[yii\i18n\Formatter|API documentation of the Formatter class]] and the following subsections.
```php
'components' => [
'formatter' => [
'dateFormat' => 'dd.MM.yyyy',
'decimalSeparator' => ',',
'thousandSeparator' => ' ',
'currencyCode' => 'EUR',
],
],
```
Formatting Date and Time values <a name="date-and-time"></a>
-------------------------------
The formatter class provides different methods for formatting date and time values. These are:
- [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asDate()|date]] - the value is formatted as a date e.g. `January, 01 2014`.
- [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asTime()|time]] - the value is formatted as a time e.g. `14:23`.
- [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asDatetime()|datetime]] - the value is formatted as date and time e.g. `January, 01 2014 14:23`.
- [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asTimestamp()|timestamp]] - the value is formatted as a [unix timestamp](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_time) e.g. `1412609982`.
- [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asRelativeTime()|relativeTime]] - the value is formatted as the time interval between a date
and now in human readable form e.g. `1 hour ago`.
The date and time format for the [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asDate()|date]], [[yii\i18n\Formatter::asTime()|time]], and
[[yii\i18n\Formatter::asDatetime()|datetime]] method can be specified globally by configuring the formatters
properties [[yii\i18n\Formatter::$dateFormat|$dateFormat]], [[yii\i18n\Formatter::$timeFormat|$timeFormat]], and
