title: Why can't I access DateTime->date in PHP's DateTime class?
body: <p>Using the <code>DateTime</code> class, if I try to run the following code:</p>
  
  <pre><code>$mydate = new DateTime();
  echo $mydate-&gt;date;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I'll get back this error message</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Notice: Undefined property: DateTime::$date...</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Which doesn't make sense because when running <code>var_dump()</code> on the variable <code>$mydate</code>, it clearly shows that this property exists and is publicly accessible:</p>
  
  <pre><code>var_dump($mydate);
  
  object(DateTime)[1]
    public 'date' =&gt; string '2012-12-29 17:19:25' (length=19)
    public 'timezone_type' =&gt; int 3
    public 'timezone' =&gt; string 'UTC' (length=3)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is this a bug within PHP or am I doing something wrong? I'm using PHP 5.4.3.</p>