the_date()

the_date() — Displays or retrieves the date of the post (once per date). Will only output the date if the current post’s date is different from the previous one output. i.e. Only one date listing will show per day worth of posts shown in the loop, even if the function is called several times for each post. HTML output can be filtered with ‘the_date’. Date string output can be filtered with ‘get_the_date’.

Inputs: $format (string): Optional. PHP date format. Defaults to the ‘date_format’ option. $before (string): Optional. Output before the date. Default empty. $after (string): Optional. Output after the date. Default empty. $display (bool): Optional. Whether to echo the date or return it. Default true.

Returns string|void: The date when $display is false, or an empty string when the post’s date matches the previously output one. Nothing otherwise.