Title: When a string is optional, does this mean…
Last modified: August 30, 2016

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# When a string is optional, does this mean…

 *  [Kavouras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kavouras/)
 * (@kavouras)
 * [10 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-a-string-is-optional-does-this-mean/)
 * Hi,
    In this code the strings are optional `<?php the_date( $format, $before,
   $after, $echo ); ?>`
 * If I only want to define the $before and $after strings and leave the others 
   at default value, how do I do it? how does my code should look like?
 * Like this (?):
    `<?php the_date( , 'before text' , 'after text', ); ?>`

The topic ‘When a string is optional, does this mean…’ is closed to new replies.

 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [Kavouras](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kavouras/)
 * Last activity: [10 years, 9 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/when-a-string-is-optional-does-this-mean/)
 * Status: not resolved

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