Elements 3.1.1 (24668), CMS pages on a PHP 8 host
Dates on three of my CMS sites were being published like this:
6th October,&10b00-07:00; 2026
Cause
The Text component held this, with two spaces before the Y:
{{item.date_published|date("jS F, Y")}}
When the page is published, Elements turns the double space into . It does this inside the {{ }} braces as well as in ordinary text, so the server receives a different date format:
{{item.date_published|date("jS F, Y")}}
If the collection uses Load More, you can see this converted line in the published page source, inside its <template>.
PHP then reads the letters of as date codes:
| Character | PHP reads it as | Prints |
|---|---|---|
& |
plain text | & |
n |
month number | 10 |
b |
plain text | b |
s |
seconds | 00 |
p |
offset from UTC (PHP 8) | -07:00 |
; |
plain text | ; |
So October prints &10b00-07:00; and March prints &3b00-07:00;.
Steps to reproduce
- Add a CMS Collection and put a Text component inside the item.
- Type this, with two spaces before
Y:
{{item.date_published|date("jS F, Y")}}
- Publish and open the page.
Expected: 6th October, 2026
Actual: 6th October,&10b00-07:00; 2026
Suggested fix
Leave everything between {{ and }} exactly as typed. Turning extra spaces into makes sense for visible text, but inside an expression it changes the code. I’d expect any double space inside an expression to be changed the same way; a date format is just where it shows up.
Workaround
Use a single space inside the braces. If you want a wider gap, put the extra space after the closing }}, where does no harm.
Check your own sites
Two CMS templates in my project library (“Posts” and “Single Post”) had the same double space, as j F Y with two spaces before Y. I don’t know whether I added them or they came from a stock template. If it’s the stock one, a lot of sites could have this. If a date on your site shows something like &10b00-07:00;, this is the cause.