CakePHP 3 format date in select query - cakephp

Question

I am using CakePHP 3 in my project and I came across of a need to format date for date_joined and date_inactivefield in my report. I can use native select query with date function to format date for the field, but in CakePHP, I am not sure how can I integrate date format in select query.
$query = $this->CustomersView->find();
$query->select(['id','contact_person',''date_joined',
'date_inactive','comments','status']);
$query->toArray();
UPDATE
I also tried one of the example from CakePHP online resource
$date = $query->func()->date_format([
'date_joined' => 'literal',
'%m-%d-%y' => 'literal'
]);
$query->select(['id','contact_person',''date_joined',
'date_inactive','comments','status']);
$query->toArray();
But it throws me error below:
'Error: SQLSTATE[42000]: Syntax error or access violation: 1064 You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '%m-%d-%y)) AS `datejoined`, CustomersView.date_inactive AS `CustomersView__date_' at line 1'
SQL query generated by CakePHP:
SELECT CustomersView.id AS `CustomersView__id`,
CustomersView.contact_person AS `CustomersView__contact_person`,
(date_format(date_joined, %m-%d-%y)) AS `datejoined`,
CustomersView.date_inactive AS `CustomersView__date_inactive`,
CustomersView.comments AS `CustomersView__comments`,
CustomersView.status AS `CustomersView__status`
FROM customers_view CustomersView
Any help is really appreciated. :)
Thanks,
Ray

Answer 1

If the date fields are of an appropriate type in your schema (e.g. DATETIME), Cake will return DateTime objects that can be formatted using plain PHP - you don't need to do it in the select.
Example:
$query = $this->CustomersView->find();
$query->select(['id','contact_person','date_joined',
'date_inactive','comments','status']);
$array = $query->toArray();
foreach ($array as $row) {
echo $row["date_joined"]->format("dMY");
}
Let's say for example that your query only returned one row, and the date_joined field here was set to 2015-12-21 23:55:00. The above code would simply print out 21Dec2015.

Answer 2

You can use the DATE_FORMAT($field, %d-%m-%Y) from MySQL.
Here it is an example:
$query = $this->CustomersView->find();
$query->select(['id','contact_person',''DATE_FORMAT(date_joined, "%d-%m-%Y")',
'date_inactive','comments','status']);

Answer 3

Fixed the problem with below code:
$query = $this->CustomersView->find();
$date = $query->func()->date_format([
'date_joined' => 'literal',
"'%m-%d-%y'" => 'literal'
]);
$query->select(['id', 'contact_person', 'date_joined' => $date,
'date_inactive', 'comments', 'status']);
$query->toArray();